This episode provides updates on a 32-acre central Louisiana minor subdivide purchased for nearly $500K all-in (including $100K+ turnkey homesite improvements), detailing survey delays, parish approval timelines, and initial neighbor interest while coordinating four dirt work contractors for quotes.
Key Takeaways:
- Parallel Processing Accelerates Complex Deals Starting dirt work on one child parcel before parish approval (which could take 2-6 weeks) speeds the timeline since verbal approval exists and worst-case the parent tract still benefits from one improved homesite.
- Parish vs. County Terminology Matters Louisiana uniquely uses “parishes” instead of counties, and understanding local government structure prevents communication gaps when navigating approval processes in unfamiliar jurisdictions.
- Neighbor Interest Provides Quick Exits The adjacent landowner expressing strong interest in one child parcel at full price without value-add costs could eliminate 33% of improvement expenses while reducing market risk from selling parcels individually.
- Multiple Contractor Quotes Prevent Overpaying Securing three to four hard quotes from trusted local contractors (vetted by the broker) ensures competitive pricing and avoids paying an outsider’s tax on rural dirt work projects.
Listen to the full episode for the complete strategy on managing multi-parcel value-add projects including how to structure investor syndicates and position for eight-figure institutional capital partnerships.
(Podcast transcript below)
Hi, Chris Duff over at Serious Land Capital, vacant land funding partner. Today, just wanted to give a quick update on that larger Louisiana minor subdivide we’re working on, some tangible items that I think can inform your own processes for similar projects within your own business. lot of applicability, think. So I know I’ve remarked on this one.
many times but to get some of you up to speed this was a roughly 32 acre parcel in central Louisiana that seemed to be in an excellent market just a high quality property that was ripe for minor subdivisions specifically into three parcels of roughly
same acreage each and one flag lot just based on the lay of the land and so we had pursued that one all in was almost a $500,000 deal you know over a hundred thousand of that was related to value add that we’re anticipating doing it basically creating turnkey home sites for all three
parcels, the anticipated child parcels. So we have an excellent local broker. It is part of a family business from a relative brokerage perspective, and they deal with a lot of land, including a number of these minor subdivides. They’ve navigated successfully currently and in the past.
And so we noticed that we could really bump the price per acre significantly by doing that value add approach. So we brought in investors to effectively build a syndicate around this particular deal. And we definitely have high hopes for it. So far, everything is going according to plan, though the initial stages were just getting the survey done. Maybe a little bit of delay there. You know, it’s it’s the South, right? Louisiana, rural areas.
took probably, you know, three business days or so longer than we were expecting for getting the child parcel map delivered to us. but we have that we’re anticipating submitting for, approval within the parish. and FYI parishes are equivalent to counties. that’s just the way Louisiana handles it. I think it’s the only state that has that terminology.
And we already have tacit approval from the kind of primary decision maker within the parish about getting our subdivides approved. So should be no issue there. But, you know, the turnaround time might be upwards of six weeks. It’s kind of like the longest time delay that we might have, but it’s possible it could get done a lot sooner than that, maybe on the shorter end, closer to two weeks. So, you know, I’m just eager to get that clock started.
here ASAP. And in the meantime, our broker was out visiting the parcel again. He’s like, yeah, this is some of the best land he thinks within the parish. And he’s operated there his whole life and really thinks that there’s a strong likelihood we’ll be able to get an excellent return from it. Plus there was just a AI data center that was disapproved.
recently within the parish that’s anticipated to bring a lot more jobs and boosting the local economy here shortly so that’s only going to help us as well and usually I’m a little bit more skeptical about some of those kind of larger hey you know a highway coming or you new hotel and so forth like usually we’re operating on a tighter time
Horizon where some of those projects they might impact an exit a bit, but I’m kind of treating that as a a lower pro or con compared to just, you know, what’s, what’s the underlying market been doing over the last, you know, six, 12 months, especially the more recent, the better, just FYI about that. but you know, it certainly doesn’t hurt us. and it’s possible the next door neighbor who has expressed
significant interest in buying out one of those child parcels can exit us out of that portion pretty much right away and we could avoid having to do extra value add and a You know dollar for dollar basis in terms of price per acre Especially
not accounting for having to spend an extra 33 % on value add expenses would be equivalent to what we were expecting if we were to do value add. But it can just exit us out of one parcel even quicker based on the price point that we’re seeking and seem to be indicating that the neighbor is definitely trending in that direction. What we’ll know very shortly here because
You know, they have a little bit of time to hem and haw a bit because you parish needs to approve this but like as soon as that’s done they pretty much need to come to a decision point. Okay, we’re either going to do this dirt work now or you know, you’re gonna have to actually get under contract here and secure the property so that will come to a head here shortly. But you know, it’s good to hear that we already have some initial interest in the property itself.
and we have, actually four trusted dirt work contractors trusted from the perspective of the broker. You know, obviously we’re not local to the area, who, three of them are going to be, you know, walking the property, providing hard quotes next week. And then the, then another one will be providing another quote the following week. So we’ll be able to decide from them. That’s really the only other capital expenditure we’re anticipating for this property. We’ve already paid for the survey done.
inclusive within that cost was, you know, the parish submission process. So, you know, as soon as we have the hard quote, we’ll be good to go. You know, we gave ourselves very little margin to work with within what we raised from investors, you know, worst case we might be off by like 10,000, but I doubt it. Because I think we already gave ourselves enough buffer that there won’t be any issue there.
in particular, especially if the next door neighbor ends up buying one of those child parcels. And to shorten things up even more is that as soon as we confirm quotes and decide on the best dirt work contractor, we can go ahead and get started on one of those anticipated child parcels right away, even in lieu of parish approval. And yeah, while it’s not in writing yet, we already have, you know, tacit verbal approval for our plan.
Anyway, but in that worst case that the parish decides not to approve our parcel for whatever reason, it would still make sense to do at least one home site on the property as a parent tract and would still boost the value that way. So that’s still going to be in the game plan there, but then we can just go ahead and start moving things a little bit faster. You know, the key takeaways here are
You know, if we have a number of moving parts for a particular property, you know, are there any areas that can kind of parallel process at the same time? So, you know, we’re not just waiting for X result to get done before starting the next one. What makes sense to engage on while we’re waiting for some of these other items? And so.
That’s what I’ve just been trying to stay on top of. know, again, this broker has been very, very solid. you know, we basically are in touch daily about this. You know, we have a lot of money riding on this deal, a lot of very savvy investors. So, and, know, we’re really hoping this goes well because, know, pending the, result of this one, some of our investors have already, you know, mentioned that, Hey, if they want to invest, you know,
you know, with direct control, you know, like eight, eight figures plus tens of millions of dollars through our firm. So, um, you know, with the expectation, this deal goes well. I really think it’s trending in that direction. Um, you know, I’m already trying to line up much larger deals, you know, high six figure, seven figure routine deals, um, for Q3 and Q4 of this year to really give us an extra step function increase in the growth of our business. Um, you know, we’re already trending, uh,
to
end up with over a million dollars in net profits for this year. So that is certainly the track that we’re trying to continue on for that Texas property I remarked on the other day. We’re about to sign an offer for an anticipated $206,000 of net profit to our company. I’ll discuss that one probably later this week once everything is actually in writing.
Just to give you our thought process about that But you know In the midst of kind of a crazy macro at the moment. We’re still finding ways to get really solid deals being done here So hopefully some of these items I just discussed are helpful for how you would consider Doing your own minor sub divides like especially if you’re operating a new area. I make sure you really have a trusted realtor
So, you know, boots on the ground kind of project manager and making sure you’re getting multiple quotes as necessary. so you’re not kind of, sold a kind of false bill of goods, or, know, just paying, paying kind of an outsider’s tax, without doing your homework. you know, really be diligent, about pursuing those items.
And just understand how you can parallel process to save as much time as possible And you know if you can get a bird in hand, maybe you’re earning your less absolute dollars if you can move something a little bit faster You know definitely consider doing that because you know taking some money Or bringing some money back back into the deal and paying off investors and you know, just kind of securing your principal
Earlier the better is oftentimes a worthwhile trade. So hopefully this one is helpful. Serious Land Capital for any of your funding needs within land. Land Daily Diligence Facebook group for zero cost review of your land deals and LandPricer.ai. Still getting more work done on that. Got some really solid feedback on that yesterday. Improving the script considerably to cut down on the…
time per deal by like over 50 % at minimal cost accuracy. That’s my main goal this weekend. Keep rolling through this beta with that subscribe and share. Take care. Bye.
