The fastest way to find land buyers is to build the buyer list before you build the seller list. Michael Robertson of My Land Family works one Florida county, keeps roughly 10 builder relationships active, and knows what each of them buys — parcel size, price range, location — before he ever mails a letter. He calls it “sell it first,” and the longest he has ever held a property is 90 days.
The standard sequence runs backward. Mail thousands of letters, land one contract, then hunt for an end buyer against a 30-day clock. That pressure is what produces bad assignments, blown earnest money, and deals that die on the table.
Below is the sourcing sequence Robertson runs: where builder buyers actually come from, how to reverse-engineer a buy box from county records, what a committed exit does to the price you can pay, how he screens sellers before offering, and the three-offer structure plus contract language that lets him walk when due diligence goes bad.
Key takeaways
- Two sources produce almost all builder buyers: your local Home Builders Association membership roster and a county-pulled list of everyone who has permitted a single-family house in the past 12 months.
- Roughly 10 active builder relationships is enough to move steady volume — and some parcels are better simply listed with a realtor than forced onto a builder.
- Pull a target builder’s own purchases from county records first. Parcel size, price range and location tell you their buy box, so you can build a mail list that matches actual demand.
- A known exit justifies a smaller spread. If the buyer is committed at 70, paying 55 or 60 beats grinding a seller to 35 and hoping.
- Never send one offer. Three options — cash quick close, delayed close, and seller-financed at a higher price — make the seller negotiate against themselves, and the terms options carry a couple thousand dollars more margin.
From the Real Estate Pros Show
This article draws on an interview with Michael Robertson of My Land Family on the Real Estate Pros Show, hosted by Cody Crabb.
Why the Buyer Should Come Before the Contract
The problem with the standard land model is timing. You mail 2,000 letters, one seller says yes, and now you are holding a 30-day contract with no idea who takes the parcel off your hands. Every decision after that point gets made under pressure.
Robertson reversed it. “Find your end buyer, know what they want, then go look for the product.” The buyer bench exists before the mail goes out, so the acquisition is essentially a fill order rather than a speculation.
The holding periods show what that does operationally. His longest hold in eight years is 90 days — bought at $24,700, sold at $51,500. His shortest is a same-day double close: he sits down at the title company, signs the purchase, the closer hands him the next stack, and he signs the sale.
He does two to five deals a month working out of a spare room with help from his wife and a VA. That volume is not a function of marketing spend. It is a function of never buying something without knowing where it goes.
There is a second benefit that matters more than speed. When you know your exit price before you negotiate, you can hold your margin without guessing at it. Robertson’s appraisal background means step one on any lead is establishing what the parcel sells for, then working backward to a number that carries profit. Deals die when the seller won’t meet that number — which is fine. What does not happen is buying first and discovering the resale market afterward.
Where Land Buyers Actually Come From
Two sources do most of the work, and both are free or close to it.
- The local Home Builders Association. The HBA in Robertson’s county has 94 builder members. That roster is a pre-qualified list of companies whose entire business depends on acquiring buildable lots.
- County permit records. Ask the county to pull a list of everyone who has pulled a permit to build a single-family house in the last year. These are not aspirational buyers — they have already built, which means they have already bought land.
The third source is easy to overlook: nonprofit builders. Robertson had lunch with the land acquisition manager at one local nonprofit and has sold that single relationship roughly 12 properties. One example was a lot he bought at $10,000 and sold at $19,500. When a repeat buyer knows your inventory, disposition becomes a phone call.
You do not need 94 relationships. Robertson’s rule of thumb is about 10 builders, and he is candid that not every property fits a builder’s criteria. “Sometimes I don’t want to deal with it. I just list it with a realtor and let her deal with the property.” Retail listing is a legitimate second exit, not a failure — it just runs slower and you should price the hold accordingly.
The relationship work is unglamorous. Lunches, calls, remembering what someone bought last time. That is the actual asset in this model, not the mailing list.
Sell it first — find your end buyer, know what they want, then go look for the product. As opposed to a lot of people: they mail out 2,000 letters, now they’ve got one, and they’ve got a 30-day contract and they’re scrambling.
— Michael Robertson, My Land Family
Reverse-Engineering the Buy Box From County Records
Before pitching a builder, look up what they already own. Pull the company name in county records and their purchase history is right there: what they bought, parcel sizes, the price range they paid, and which submarkets they work in.
That gives you a buy box you did not have to ask for. Now the conversation is not “what kind of land do you want?” It is “I know you bought three quarter-acre lots on this side of town between $25,000 and $30,000, and I can bring you more of those.” Builders respond to that because it saves them time.
Then build the mail list to match. Robertson’s list is deliberately small — he has no interest in mailing 4,000 letters — because it is filtered to parcels that fit a buyer he already has. Fewer letters, higher hit rate on deals that close.
None of this works spread across five states. Robertson has worked one Florida county for eight years and stays within 20 to 30 miles of his house. His advice to newer land investors is to pick two or three market areas, no more. The reason is the local knowledge you cannot get from a spreadsheet: whether a parcel has gopher tortoise issues, whether a perk test is required, what values actually are street by street. “Someone outside of the area might not know” is where money gets lost.
Pick a market, build an excellent list, follow up continuously. Robertson still gets calls from sellers he mailed four years ago.
What a Known Exit Does to Your Buy Price
The pricing tradeoff is straightforward: a committed buyer lets you pay more and still win.
Robertson’s typical spreads are wide. Buy at 10, sell at 20. Buy at 6, sell at 25. The $24,700 to $51,500 deal. The $10,000 to $19,500 nonprofit sale. Those margins come from grinding hard on acquisition.
But when the exit is already locked, the math changes. “If I already have the end buyer in place, and I know they can pay 70, I don’t have to get it for 35 from this guy or 40. I get it for 55 or 60. I can make a smaller spread, but I’ve already got my end buyer in place.”
Smaller spread, faster turn, near-zero disposition risk. A $10,000 to $15,000 margin that closes in three weeks with a known buyer beats a theoretical $35,000 margin on a parcel you might carry for a year — especially when the capital recycles.
Repeat buyers also collapse the negotiation. Robertson called his nonprofit contact with a property, named a price, and the buyer countered at $27,000. He asked for $28,000. The answer was okay. That was the whole disposition process.
The practical implication for acquisitions: stop treating maximum spread as the only measure of a good deal. Price to your known exit, protect a real margin, and move the inventory. Volume at a defensible spread outperforms occasional home runs on parcels you cannot sell.
Screening the Seller, Not Just the Parcel
Most investors run due diligence on the property. Robertson does that too, then goes further and profiles the seller — and he argues that is where the edge actually is.
His sequence has two layers:
- Build the initial list from tax delinquent, code enforcement, lien or expired MLS sources. On tax delinquent records he also notes how many years behind they are.
- Layer seller data to decide who is worth mailing at all: age, gender, marital status, annual income, net worth, credit score.
The profile he treats as genuinely motivated: 75 years old, single, no house standing on the lot, delinquent taxes, roughly $20,000 in annual income, a 499 credit score. That person needs to sell. A high-income owner who is one year behind on a $400 tax bill probably does not.
Once a conversation is live and before he makes an offer, he runs a deeper background check — bankruptcies, liens, judgments, criminal history, business licenses, business affiliations, and anything recorded in the seller’s name. That informs how he structures the offer. Two identical parcels can get two different deals depending on who is on the other side.
Two honest caveats. This data costs money, and coverage is incomplete — Robertson notes he gets credit scores “not on all of them, but on a lot of them.” And this is his screening practice, not a legal template. How you may use consumer data in a real estate transaction depends on the source, the provider’s terms, and applicable law. Talk to your attorney before copying it.
The Three-Offer Close and the Walk-Away Clause
Robertson never makes one offer. Three options change who the seller is arguing with. “Instead of negotiating against me, they typically get the three offers and negotiate against themselves.”
His illustrative structure on a small parcel:
- $6,500 cash, quick close — lowest price, fastest certainty
- $7,500 closing in 90 days — the window he needs for an assignment or double close
- $8,500 seller-financed over two years — highest headline number, spread over time
Most sellers take the cash because speed is what they want. When they push for more money, the answer is not a concession — it is “you have two other options.” And when they do take one of the terms options, the higher price still pencils, adding a couple thousand dollars of margin because the structure earns it.
The second half of the protection is contract language. Robertson writes an inspection period long enough to actually complete due diligence, and includes language making the agreement contingent on all satisfactory due diligence. If something surfaces — or a parcel he expected to move cannot be sold — the exit is clean: the due diligence was not satisfactory.
He has used it twice in eight years. Two walk-aways, and he says he has never lost money on a deal. That is the point of the clause. It is not a tool for backing out of deals you regret; it is the thing that lets you sign a contract at all without a buyer’s certainty on every single parcel. Have your attorney draft the actual wording for your state.
Frequently asked questions
How many builder relationships do you need before you can reliably sell every lot you buy?
About 10. That is Robertson’s working number after eight years in one county, even though his local Home Builders Association has 94 members. Ten active relationships gives you enough variation in parcel size, price range and geography that most lots you find will fit someone.
He also does not force every property onto a builder. When a parcel does not match anyone’s criteria, he lists it with a realtor and lets retail handle disposition.
How do you find out what a specific builder will pay and what parcels they want?
Pull their company name in county records and read their purchase history. You will see the parcels they bought, the sizes, the prices they paid, and where they bought — which is a more honest buy box than anything they would tell you in a first meeting.
Come to the conversation with that already done. You are then offering to source more of what they demonstrably buy, rather than asking them to educate you.
Is a smaller spread acceptable if the end buyer is already lined up?
Yes, and Robertson takes that trade deliberately. If he knows the end buyer pays 70, he will buy at 55 or 60 rather than pushing the seller to 35 and hoping. The spread shrinks, but the turn is fast and disposition risk is close to zero.
The comparison that matters is not spread against spread. It is a certain margin that closes in weeks against a larger theoretical margin on a parcel you may carry indefinitely.
What data do you check on a land seller before making an offer?
Robertson builds his list from tax delinquent, code enforcement, lien or expired MLS records, then layers age, gender, marital status, annual income, net worth and credit score to prioritize who gets mailed. Once a seller is in conversation, he runs a background check covering bankruptcies, liens, judgments, criminal history, business licenses and business affiliations.
This costs money and coverage is partial — he notes credit scores are not available on every record. It is also his own screening practice, not legal guidance; confirm with counsel what data you may lawfully use and how.
What contract language lets you exit a land deal if due diligence goes badly?
Robertson uses two things together: an inspection window long enough to actually complete his diligence, and language stating the agreement is contingent on all satisfactory due diligence. If a problem surfaces, he notifies the seller that diligence was not satisfactory and exits.
He has used it twice in eight years. Have a local attorney draft the specific wording for your state and your contract form — this is his practice, not a template.
How many markets should a land investor work at once?
Two or three at most, and one is defensible. Robertson has worked a single Florida county for eight years and stays within 20 to 30 miles of his house.
The reason is knowledge you cannot buy remotely: whether a parcel carries gopher tortoise issues, whether a perk test is required, and what values really are block by block. Investors spread across multiple counties and states miss the local problems that turn a deal upside down.
The bottom line
Before you send another mailer, spend a week on the buyer side: get the HBA member roster, request the county’s single-family permit list for the past 12 months, and pull county purchase records on the five most active names. That gives you real buy boxes to build your seller list against — which is the whole difference between filling an order and hoping someone shows up.
