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Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Michelle Kesil interviews Nick Book, a seasoned real estate investor and land developer based in Texas. Nick shares his journey from working in his father’s construction business to becoming a full-time real estate investor. He discusses his focus on land development, the importance of learning from past experiences, and the keys to success in navigating the real estate market. Nick also highlights the challenges of securing capital and the significance of partnerships in achieving growth. The conversation concludes with Nick offering insights on how to connect with him for potential collaborations.
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Nick Book (00:00)
a big mixed use entitlement can run.half a million dollars easily, but you’re also talking, you know, $20 million in land sales. So there’s huge upsides for the entitlement process. you know, having the capital readily available, because it’s not a traditional real estate transaction where you’re buying land, right? You don’t have the collateral for the money, for the loan.
Michelle Kesil (01:25)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil, and today I’m joined by someone I’m looking forward to chatting with, Nick Book, who is a real estate investor as well as a land developer in the Texas area. So excited to have you here today, Nick.Nick Book (01:29)
youThanks.
you
Yeah, thanks for having me on. Excited to talk about the market and what’s going on and hopefully learn something or maybe share something.
Michelle Kesil (01:51)
Awesome, let’s dive in. So for those who are not yet familiar with you and your work, can you share what your main focus is? ⁓Nick Book (01:59)
⁓I’ve had my hands in just about everything from single family flips to large mixed use land development plays. today in this time we’re really focused on our ability to take properties from raw land to fully entitled development ready property for your institutional top buyers.
lots of larger mixed use stuff is what we’re working on today.
Michelle Kesil (02:29)
Awesome.Nick Book (02:29)
not necessarilytoday, but this, you know, at this time.
Michelle Kesil (02:33)
Yeah, and so how did you get into real estate and get to where you are now?Nick Book (02:39)
Yeah, so I grew up probably 10 years old, making $50 a week, working for my dad’s construction company, just bringing tools or doing a little grunt work and things of that nature. And as I got older, I continued to work for the family business in the summertime and went to college, played football, still continued to work in the construction industry during the summer times in college.went back to work for my father’s business after school around 2005 sorry about went back to work for my father’s business and in construction and we were doing high-end remodels his focus primarily been on hardwood flooring business and that’s what his business was.
in the late 90s and early 2000s was really North Texas and Plano and the housing market was going going crazy so it was a good time to be in the flooring business and that eventually expanded into remodels and high-end remodels and add-ons and things of that nature in North Dallas and up into Grayson and Cook counties and so I was working for them
and ended up going out on my own around 2007 and I started a commercial finish out business and we were doing commercial finish outs for properties like Creighton Barrel that’s a name that a lot of people know and then we sold that 2010, 11 and exited out of that before I knew anything about
acquiring and selling businesses. then ended up by 2013, I think 2008, bought my first investment property, single family investment home. didn’t know, I thought I was gonna flip it essentially. So I turned into somewhat of a flop, up doing a lot of different, learning a lot of different phases of real estate and that first one, it was interesting. I rented it out.
I owner financed it and eventually sold it outright. it was a neat, at the time wasn’t a neat experience, but turned into a good learning experience over the next few years. But 2013, was fully, full-time real estate investor. And before you know it, had about 10 houses going at a time as far as flips go.
Did that really strong for several years before shifting over to the multifamily space around 2018. Started acquiring small multifamily units, creating some value, not too much value, just a little bit. Taking a certain percentage of those units and turning them over so that we proved that the rent could be raised to a certain amount and lessen the meat on the bone for some other.
you know, long-term old guys to take those properties. So just, it was the same as flipping the houses, as if we were, you know, they were paying for themselves as we had them, you know, so they were what we would like to refer to now as covered properties. Had an opportunity to take the real estate director position for Choctaw Global, which is the subsidiary of the Choctaw Nation out of Durant, Oklahoma, managed
About a billion dollars worth of assets for them, over 17 different commercial type assets, mostly heavily in the multifamily space. ⁓ Met a lot of neat people, had a really ⁓ neat experience working for the tribe and meeting a lot of other tribal nations across the state of Oklahoma and actually across the nation. And gained a new respect for what they do and what they’re…
their cores are, their core principles and what they’re trying to do for ⁓ their tribes, essentially. It’s really neat. They got a lot of neat things going. Left there a year and half ago and continue to focus on land development, which is doing a heavy part of with Choctaw. And we’ve got a couple mixed use commercial projects going on, one in North Texas and very early stages.
don’t want to speak too much about it right now because it’s not been publicly announced or anything, but it’s a big project. It’ll change a lot for the city of Sherman as far as dining and commercial and retail and things of that nature. We’re putting a lot of pride into it. And then we’ve got a property in Oklahoma really close to the Choctaw Casinos. We’ve got a big project going on there as well. It’s very early stages.
exciting things going on in next year, year and a half or so that are going to change the landscape in North Texas and southern Oklahoma.
Michelle Kesil (08:36)
Yeah, awesome. Sounds like there’s a lot of great things on the horizon. And so what would you say are some of the main keys that make the biggest difference in allowing your business to be able to have all of these moving parts and be able to continue to grow and run smoothly?Nick Book (08:54)
A lot of that is learning things the hard way. That’s what I’ve done over my career. It’s not always been smooth. learn what to do by learning what not to do first. I’ve tried to shorten that gap, so we’re not doing that for long periods of time. Being able to see from a very small investment pointlike your single family flipper or your small multifamily two to 10 person all the way through the institutional style, multi, know, mixed use developments has been, you know, I feel like, you know, that’s, I’ve landed here because I’ve seen it from the small, literally groundwork doing hardwood floors at 10 years old to.
to the biggest projects other than skyscrapers and things like that. haven’t done anything. But three to five stories is not a… It’s a lot bigger than some hardwood floors. So being able to see the full cycle is… I’ve got a huge respect for everything and everything that goes into it. It’s been a fun journey. Not always fun, but looking back, it’s been some good fun experiences.
Michelle Kesil (10:52)
Yeah, awesome. I’m glad you’re having fun and enjoying the process.Nick Book (10:55)
Yeah,but the big, I mean the biggest factor, going back to your question, I’m sorry, like that’s able, you know, right now is our opportunity just in the sheer market that we’re located in. Not necessarily the market in general, but the market that we’re located in is really flourishing. We’ve got some big investments that have happened lately that have really sparked growth and there was a big expansion of TI that was…
like a 40 billion, ended up being a 40 billion dollar plant that they put in that’s creating thousands of jobs over, don’t quote me on this because you always hear different numbers, but thousands of jobs nonetheless over the course of several years. then there’s some supporting companies also that have came in, Globotech being one, there’s a five billion dollar plant. And so lots of things that are happening ⁓ from a chip perspective, because these are both chip manufacturers and technology.
hubs essentially that are sparking growth and that along with being 60 miles outside of DFW or just north of Dallas, you can be in Sherman where these, North Texas I keep speaking of, Sherman, Texas, these properties are located at and you can be there to DFW airport an hour and 20 minutes or so. So it’s not like you’re…
way on a rural area.
Michelle Kesil (12:27)
Yeah, definitely. And so what would you say like you’re looking to most focus on scaling to next?Nick Book (12:36)
Completely focused on our land value operations and the value that we can create through our value partners. So we have the ability to streamline entitlement process from looking at a property to determine what the best case use for that property is with a lot of the tools that we have today with AI.We’ve built some systems that we’re able to just…
pull in so much information in such a short amount of time and really focused on streamlining that and creating value with landowners. A lot of times, for example, a landowner wants a million dollars for their raw land, but that raw land has no plan with it. it doesn’t, raw land in that area, maybe some land sold for a million dollars, but that land had entitlement and it was already approved for
X number of units or something of that nature, right? And so people get confused on why that land sold for that much and my land, my raw land’s only worth this much. And so what we do is show them how to get that value out of that land and we come in and partner with them and streamline it through the entitlement and help them get not only what they want but a lot of times more than what they want.
Michelle Kesil (13:56)
Yeah, amazing.Nick Book (13:57)
That’sour focus right now. That’s really what we’re doing and that’s what we’re after.
Michelle Kesil (14:45)
Yeah, and is this only in like the Texas region that you’re doing that land development?Nick Book (14:51)
No, we can do that. We can do that nationwide. I’ve been in North Texas and Southern Oklahoma. That’s just because of where I’m physically located at. And we hadn’t had the real need to expand any wider just because we’ve got so much opportunity in our backyard. But we’re certainly open to looking at opportunities anywhere because I mean, it’s really, yeah, we’ll do some site visits, but I mean, a lot of times we’re, you know, that’s…Michelle Kesil (14:58)
Right.Nick Book (15:17)
That’s not a problem, to come do a couple site visits, but for the most part, we’re sitting here in front of our desk and pounding.Michelle Kesil (15:26)
Awesome. And so how do you find the right land that’s what’s kind of in your criteria and how do you find those leads?Nick Book (15:38)
you know, it’s everything that we’ve done thus far has been strictly through our networks and just putting out feelers and, and, know, letting people know, like we have done zero marketing for anything at this, at this point. we’ve got a huge network here in DFW and you know, my family still farms, I say my family, my extended family still farms a bunch of land and in the area and they know everybody.And so it’s a small community with a lot of opportunity. it’s really just, we’ll go anywhere. just hasn’t had the, the need hasn’t arose yet.
Michelle Kesil (16:18)
Yeah, got you. What would you say is a obstacle that you have overcome on your investing journey? Then now you can see the bigger picture lesson.Nick Book (16:29)
God.name an obstacle and I can give you a scenario where it happened.
I think you’re always looking for capital in real estate, not always, but a lot of times you need the capital when the deal arises and that can be a struggle on what came first type deal, the chicken or the egg. You’ve got a business plan, you know how to operate it, but you don’t know when that actual deal is going to present itself. So with these entitlements…
deal with these entitlement deals and these land value ads. mean, we’re, it’s, it’s minimal expenses for the upside, you know, and without taking ownership, ownership risk, you know, we’re, we’re really only in the grand scheme of things. We’re, we’re, we’re putting up pennies to, for, for lots of games essentially. Right. And I mean,
a big mixed use entitlement can run.
half a million dollars easily, but you’re also talking, you know, $20 million in land sales. So there’s huge upsides for the entitlement process. you know, having the capital readily available, because it’s not a traditional real estate transaction where you’re buying land, right? You don’t have the collateral for the money, for the loan.
you know, capital is always an issue.
not always but sometimes. then, know, deal flow. You want, we’ve got good deal flow, you know, always, deals are, we like to look at deals. We have the ability to analyze them quick and get through, you know, give you a thumbs up or thumb down and go to the next. But as far as, you know, specific deals, we don’t have a buy box because it can change. mean, single family is not something that we’re…
Single family development is not something that we’re really interested in right now. Just because new home starts are down so low, builders aren’t selling as many homes as they would like. But anything commercial, stuff like that, we’re excited to look at it.
Michelle Kesil (18:38)
Yeah, awesome. And so are you like partnering with other people as well on these deals?Nick Book (18:39)
youI’ve got one other partner that actually designed the software that we’re The AI software to help us analyze. He’s a real estate developer by trade, 30 years experience. He’s got a few more years experience than I do. I’ve always, being a college athlete and stuff, it’s like the coach, the best head coach hires other coaches that are smarter than he is, right? So I like to have people around me.
that know what they’re doing and put up the right guard rails and help the process make it better for everybody. So yeah, I’ve got one other partner in this venture. As I mentioned to you earlier, we do partner with landowners. We partner with land brokers. So currently at this particular moment, we’ve got
myself and Alan and then we’ve got two, three other deals that were partnered with the land.
Michelle Kesil (19:42)
Amazing. Sounds like some awesome opportunities coming up.Nick Book (19:45)
Yeah, it’s an exciting time to be in North Texas.Michelle Kesil (19:47)
Definitely. Well, before we begin to wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out, connect, or learn more, where can people find you and connect with you?Nick Book (19:55)
Nick Book, you can always find me on LinkedIn. That’s probably easiest.you can email me it’s you my personal gmail address is [email protected]
check that everything’s filtered through it essentially so no spam please but you know happy to interact with anybody check out some opportunities see how we can work together any any land brokers that would want to you know this having struggle truck having trouble selling their land even I mean it’s it could be just because you know they don’t have the right knowledge on you know why
why their comps are showing a million bucks, but their land’s not selling for a million bucks, right? And showing them how to get to the value that they want. I mean, love the network. I’m happy to chat with anybody and help create some more value.
Michelle Kesil (20:52)
Perfect, well appreciate your time and your story. Thank you for being here. Of course, for those that are tuning in, if you got value, make sure you’ve subscribed. We’ve got more conversations with operators like Nick who are building real businesses and we will see you on the next episode.Nick Book (20:55)
Thanks so much, Michelle.
