How David Hansen Turns Raw Land into Profitable Developments

David Hansen (00:00)
They were trying to entitle this property for like 365 lots.

It’s around 345 acres. So they were looking at one unit per acre because the ordinance was kind of in that tone. But I found a section in the ordinance that allowed us to get it entitled for 1,500 lots just because I read the ordinance and went back in and went back through the processes again. So that’s kind of where I like to hang my hat and rest.

Quentin Edmonds (00:23)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Investor Fuel Podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds. And y’all know how I always say it. And I mean it. I’m excited. I’m excited today. I’m excited about our guest. Listen, this is gonna be fun. This is gonna be fun. This is somebody, you can’t tie him down. Like he has a different approach. Y’all try, I tried to grab him by the horns and tie him down. Said, listen, give me the information that I want. But no, this guy, he just.

David Hansen (02:19)
Thank

Okay.

Quentin Edmonds (02:36)
He’s a wealth of knowledge and I am so excited for you guys to get to know his lens, his perspective, his journey. so today, y’all, I want to introduce y’all to Mr. David Hansen How you doing today, sir?

David Hansen (02:51)
Doing great, Hugh, how about yourself?

Quentin Edmonds (02:53)
⁓ man, I am doing good. Living somebody’s dream. I heard somebody tell me that, right? I’m living somebody’s dream, but I’m happy though, you know, but I’m happy, you know? So I’m happy as I’m the dream. Absolutely. And so listen, man, you know, I’m excited to have you here. Again, I know our listeners is going to take something great away from the way you approach things. And so I just want to kind of dive in, man. First of all, you know,

David Hansen (02:58)
Exactly.

Quentin Edmonds (03:21)
People may not be familiar with you, familiar with your world. So I want you to tell us, what’s your main focus these days? And I don’t even know if this is applied, but you know, I’m gonna put it out there. What markets are you operating in? You know what I’m saying? So yeah, yeah, absolutely.

David Hansen (03:31)
Hehehehehe

⁓ man.

Happy to. Well, listen, Q, it’s a pleasure to meet you. It was great talking to you before we started this. So, you know, part of my market is I spent I spent 30 plus years just outside Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia. I worked in Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia. I relocated my family down to ⁓ St. Augustine, Florida. I’m a native Floridian during COVID.

And on, and I was going back and forth to Virginia. had three development projects there and I was driving back and forth about every two weeks until on one of my trips back, I had an epiphany and I realized that I was running these jobs from my Lanai in Florida. And it hit me that I, I’d been, you know, I’d come along in this industry.

thinking that you had to be where you were in order to do the work. And on these long 10-hour drives back and forth, it hit me, my god, no one knows I’m not there. And the advent of cell phones and video and so many different things, it hit me like, I don’t have to be there. Now, that is not to say that if you’re

If you’re pushing dirt somewhere, you kind of do have to be there. But for most of what I was doing, I didn’t. And so that kind of launched me into this idea that I can do what I do, is entitlement work. I get projects approved through jurisdictions. But I can do that anywhere.

At this point, I have, you know,

15 or 16 active projects in 10 states. anywhere from ⁓ Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma. And I’m looking at some things, and I’m actually looking at a paper next to me. I’m looking at something in Indiana and in Pennsylvania.

Quentin Edmonds (06:16)
Hmm.

Wow.

I love it, man. You said entitlement work. You got 15 active projects in 10 states. I mean, of course that, you know, that’s, that’s a lot. I mean, it seems like you’re able to, you know, be self-sufficient, manage yourself well. So what keeps that machine running smoothly?

David Hansen (06:45)
Yeah. Well, I don’t know about that.

Quentin Edmonds (06:47)
Well, listen, well, I’m asking. So you tell me, like, is it smooth? Is it not smooth? Like, yeah, what keeps someone smooth?

David Hansen (06:48)
Yeah. That’s good. Like, well, it’s smooth as far as I am. Listen, I get up, you know, I told you earlier, man, I get up every morning early. I have the house to myself for a couple hours. We’ve got adult children who still live at home trying to remedy that situation. But, you know, it is what it is.

Quentin Edmonds (07:09)
Good luck.

David Hansen (07:11)
Again, what I do is the projects are big and take a long time. I think that’s probably what there aren’t so many, there may be some in your network right now that are doing larger entitlement projects. I’m assuming a lot of investors tend to look at, I do individual lots, they’re either fixing and flipping houses or

you know, if they’re involved in land, it’s individual lots that they’re moving and selling. My projects range, my smallest one is 18 estate lots in Prince William County, Virginia. My largest project is a 2,000 lot plan development in Augusta, Georgia. And so, and then I’ve got everything in between. So most of the projects take

take care of themselves once they get past a certain point. I’m just there to, you know, I’m kind of, you know, batting clean up, moving things around, making sure things happen. So it’s not as labor intensive, I think, as what some of, you know, some of your listeners may be going through where they’re sending out mailers and follow up and

and they have to maintain this rigid structure. My activities are not based in that. Mine are based in maintaining relationships and contacts with the national builders or big regional builders. It’s understanding the jurisdictions that I’m working in. When you and I spoke earlier, I mentioned that I like to read ordinance and code. Well, whenever I move

Quentin Edmonds (08:50)
Yeah.

David Hansen (08:51)
Whenever I move into a new jurisdiction that I’m working in, first thing I do, read, some people think it’s boring. For me, I like to know where there might be some nuance or some opportunity in a zoning ordinance and things that go overlooked. give you a real good example. Our project in Augusta, Georgia, it was

Under contract right before we actually own it now, my partner and I, but right before we put it under contract, it had been under contract with another group and their, either their engineer was, uh, didn’t read or didn’t understand or didn’t know the ordinance very well, but

they were trying to entitle this property for like 365 lots. It’s.

It’s around 345 acres. So they were looking at one unit per acre because the ordinance was kind of in that tone. But I found a section in the ordinance that allowed us to get it entitled for 1,500 lots just because I read the ordinance and went back in and went back through the processes again. So that’s kind of where I like to hang my hat and rest.

Quentin Edmonds (09:57)
So.

Absolutely. No, man, you go into the territory that people don’t want to go into reading these audiences. I’ve never thought about it, never considered it, but I can imagine just listening to you talk, everybody don’t do it. You got to have a certain type of insight, brain, the way your brain’s why. ⁓ I’m sure it just all makes sense to you. Like you said, you can see opportunity maybe with somebody else can’t see opportunity. Most of it because they ain’t even reading it what you’re reading, you know? So yeah.

David Hansen (10:48)
You

I always tell people, know, people ask me to, and I told you before, I’m not that much of a coach or a mentor, but I’m always happy. I’ll help anyone. Anyone can reach out to me, email or LinkedIn or any, I reply to any kind of contact I receive and I’m happy to help people. I always tell them, wherever you are, the first thing you should do is pick up the ordinance and read it.

Quentin Edmonds (11:18)
Yeah.

David Hansen (11:40)
if you’re interested. It gives you great insight. You don’t have to read the entire thing, but whatever your property is zoned, read about it. Learn about it. Yeah, yeah, you know, it’s like anything else. You have to inform yourself. The other thing that I like to put out there, and I know this hits with you, you like your parables. I believe that, you know, because a parable is nothing more than

Quentin Edmonds (11:49)
sense?

Yeah, yeah.

David Hansen (12:06)
⁓ a practical application of life or a story. And in this industry, I find there are so many people that want to deal in the theoretical. And theoretical to me is a waste of an education. Practical education means more than anything. that, you know, the parable is just that. It’s a practical application.

It may be real life. may be a story. But all stories have that grain of truth in them. And so I tend to believe that a practical education or a practical application will outweigh the theoretical nine times out of 10.

Quentin Edmonds (12:55)
No, I hear you. tend to agree with you. And that was very smooth working in the parables, man. That was very, very smooth. you’re, yeah, yeah. But now you’re absolutely right.

David Hansen (13:01)
Hey, you

gotta keep me engaged I gotta keep you engaged, right?

Quentin Edmonds (13:07)
Yes, sir. Listen, you know, know,

I love it there. But no, you’re absolutely right. I am definitely a hands on learner. You can you can tell me stuff all you want. until I put my hands on until I can actually apply practical and, you know, hands on, I’m with you, I totally with you, man. Absolutely. So let me ask you this, man. So let me ask you this, right? Of course, you know, 35 years, man, I’m sure you’ve seen a lot.

David Hansen (13:17)
That’s it.

That’s it.

Yep. Yeah. Good. Good. That’s… Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (13:35)
of different things. I’m sure you have been through some ebbs and flows. So you mind telling me about a time when, let’s say things got real, right? Maybe you had to pivot, pivot fast. You had to, know, things went sideways. Like you have any stories like that, Mr. David, that you would share with the crowd?

David Hansen (13:55)
Dude so I Let’s see 1990 when the SNL failed and I was I was a Two-year engineer at the time not a not an educated engineer You know Theoretically educated engineer, but a practically educated engineer my degrees in mathematics I became an engineer by accident

and trying to maintain a job as things crash. that’s one. 2008, when the housing market exploded, I had three real large projects in West Virginia, just over the Virginia line in Berkeley County. And I watched the, I watched, we went from,

massive sales and closings and we were selling finished lots to was selling finished lots to equity homes, Centex homes and Ryan and NVR and I watched it go from you know multiple multiple multiple monthly sales and closings to a spigot being shut off and actually live through the

Quentin Edmonds (15:12)
Mmm.

David Hansen (15:17)
going in and speaking with the bankers that held two of the notes on the property and going in with the guys from NBR and Ryan Holmes to try and keep the deals afloat. But the banks had no idea what was going on in 08. so let’s see, think the telling part of that was I lost the house.

You know, I hear something else I always say, you you can, you might be able to take my riches, but you’ll never take my wealth. You got family wealth. Yeah. I mean, you know, that’s, think if you go into any era or up and down with markets and things, that’s one thing that I kept, you know, in the forefront.

Quentin Edmonds (16:35)
Woohoo! That’s a bar. Yeah.

David Hansen (16:55)
you liked that one, you wrote that one down!

Quentin Edmonds (16:57)
You see me, right? You see me, right? I’m putting your name beside it. I’m putting it in, putting it in. Yeah, that’s what we

call a bar. That was, yeah. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, absolutely.

David Hansen (17:13)
Good. All

right. I think I probably borrowed it from somebody and I don’t know whom. ⁓ Maybe I again, parabolized it from something else that was brilliantly said. And that’s, paraphrased it down to that. But yeah, dude, I’m telling you. So you talk about ups and downs.

Quentin Edmonds (17:29)
So Parable Lies is going down as well. Parable Lies, I’ve never heard that before. So I’ll put your name beside

that, Parable Lies. Yeah, absolutely.

David Hansen (17:38)
So, yeah, so, you know, but every day, and that’s why I said before, man, I’m living somebody’s dream. Every day you wake up and it’s something, whether it’s a challenge with your family and that’s another, you know, I don’t tell people, people go, have issues. went, dude, you don’t have issues, you have challenges. You either meet them, you either meet them, exceed them or cave to them. It’s your choice.

Quentin Edmonds (17:57)
There you go.

David Hansen (18:04)
You know, and now, like I said, what I do is weird in the sense of how I came into it, you know, and how I get back is weird, again, since how I came into it. But, you know, as far as the people listening, know they came here to listen about real estate investing and, yeah, maybe we’ll get an education.

It is about real estate though. is about converting, in my mind, it’s about converting a raw piece of land into dreams of many families. So it is a real estate thing. For the folks that fix and flip, when I lived in Virginia, helped, I actually restored seven historic homes for friends.

Quentin Edmonds (18:50)
Mm-hmm.

David Hansen (18:51)
So I swing a hammer. ⁓

Quentin Edmonds (18:52)
Yeah.

David Hansen (18:54)
I understand ground up construction. I’ve worked on a backhoe and a dozer and bobcats. And I understand how to take a 50 acre piece of land through the entitlement process and come out the other side with a product that I can convey to a national or regional builder.

So it’s kind of a, you know, I look at life’s an experience, right?

Quentin Edmonds (19:25)
Absolutely. This is going exactly the way I thought it was going to go because you can’t have land. I mean, you can’t have real estate without the land, right? So I mean, so this is, so that’s why I was excited about your perspective. And I know people, people listening, they get to see this thing from a whole different perspective. So this is going exactly the way I wanted it to go. yeah, so yeah, please, I’m entertained.

David Hansen (19:26)
This should probably not go in the way you thought it would go.

Cool.

Nah! That’s right. Yeah.

Yeah. good. Nice.

Quentin Edmonds (19:54)
Like don’t get it twisted. I’m loving this. So let me ask you this. What are you most focused on solving? Or like what’s the next real goal for you?

David Hansen (20:05)
Damn, that’s a great question. The next real goal. The next, yeah, you’re doing great. my goal, you know, my goal is to actually…

Quentin Edmonds (20:08)
⁓ am I doing good as a host? Yeah, yeah.

David Hansen (20:19)
Man, well, I don’t know. I didn’t see that one coming, Q. Next. Yeah, I’d like to work through the projects that I’m working on. I’ve got some interesting opportunities, things that I’ve done recent. helped an associate take a piece of property through the rezoning process in San Antonio, Texas.

And we’re the first property with a new, it’s a new, it’s a new zoning district in San Antonio called, ⁓ transit oriented development and, ⁓ TOD. And we were either the first or the second property to have this bestowed upon it. And, and what’s really interesting about it is it throws the, basically the district.

throws all of all regular zoning out the window. You know, when you go through a neighborhood, a new neighborhood, I know you live in suburban Maryland, so you probably live in a community, you know, whether it’s a planned development or just an individualized development, but when you drive in the roads are super wide, which tend to make people want to speed.

Quentin Edmonds (21:15)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

David Hansen (21:35)
And the houses are set back 35 or 40 feet and all these things that convey a lack of community. You know, I know you, I know you grew up in Baltimore. So you grew up where, where the site, where the road and you could park on both sides, but the roads were narrow. Used to play ball in the road. I, you know, I get all that. And

Quentin Edmonds (21:45)
Mmm.

David Hansen (22:00)
So, but you had the sidewalk and then the brownstones and they were 10 feet from this, you know what I’m saying? And all of those things forged community, right?

Quentin Edmonds (22:12)
Yeah.

David Hansen (22:13)
And, but what we’ve done in the suburbs is we’ve, we’ve, we’ve removed that and created this, this, you know, one man’s dream. I got my, I got my 10,000 square foot lot. I don’t need to, I don’t need my neighbors. don’t, you know, and the reality is we do need people. Right. And so this, this, I mean, I love about this, the zoning district that, that now hopefully going to be able to, get, you know,

larger entities involved and interested in is that it throws all those zoning rules. We can basically recreate a city inside of a city. I don’t have any setback requirements. I have some height restrictions because of the location, but very little. I can basically work to recreate a city with internal parks and

Quentin Edmonds (22:53)
Yeah.

David Hansen (23:06)
and community space and living and you know, there could be a small hospital. There’s a ton of opportunity on this 70 acre piece and it’s right across the street from a 525 acre open air park.

Quentin Edmonds (23:20)
Thank

Mmm.

David Hansen (23:23)
So

you asked me the next, what I’d love to see is, you you and I talked earlier. I know you love Baltimore. I was talking about Savannah and I love walkability. love this. I love the idea of a strong community where people are involved in maintaining that. Not over involved, but just involved in their community. You know, people go out, there’s a concert in the park and there are people that go attend it.

And those people bringing their children or their grandchildren, fostering the next generation of doing the same thing. So that’s kind of where I’m, you know, I’d like to see more of that. worked really, you know, my, the, our website that my main partner and I, it’s open land communities. And part of that was

I wanted to foster that idea and I did as an engineer and I’ve tried in almost every project I work on. want to make sure that there are, that my preference would be to have the houses on smaller lots closer together with perimeter open space and internal community spaces that are planned and usable. They’re not just a throwaway. It’s not like, ah, I got to the end of the block and there’s this little piece at the end.

And it qualifies by the ordinance for my open space. I want something planned. want it to be a park, a focal spot when you come into the community. Again, I go back in Baltimore and any of the big cities, there are parks and they anchored things. They anchored the media community around them.

Quentin Edmonds (25:04)
Yeah.

David Hansen (25:07)
You know, the opportunity to hit a coffee shop or a bakery and go sit in the park and have a conversation with it. That’s what I’d like to see more of. Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (25:16)
Absolutely. Man, Mr.

David, I loved that answer. That literally sparked another question. And we got about five minutes left, so I’m going get you out of here with this question. I know you do. I know you do, Mr. David. I don’t. I mean, I can talk to you. Listen, you and I, we could easily have an hour podcast. I just don’t have that type of time. But no. But when you were talking about community, I love that lens. I love that perspective. I love that goal.

David Hansen (25:26)
I all the time in the world for you. I know, that’s what saying. Yeah. I hear you, brother. Good.

Quentin Edmonds (25:45)
I want to bring back kind of more of a community feel. love how you talked about a city within a city. I absolutely love that. So let me ask you this. When it comes to building relationships and growing your network, what’s made the biggest difference for you?

David Hansen (26:00)
Man, relaxing my, ⁓ again, it’s relaxing the constraints that I believe so many of us are bound by, and that is, yeah, we’re doing it right now. I mean, you’re in Metro Maryland. I’m sitting at my dining room table in St. Augustine, Florida. We have more in common than we know.

Quentin Edmonds (26:12)
Yeah, yup, yup.

David Hansen (26:25)
And a lot of it’s shared experience. A lot of it is, you know, I tell people like, love to focus on, you know, people go, most of your projects are in the Southeast. And it’s like, yeah, or the mid Atlantic. I spent years going up and down 95. And I drove through places and I experienced places and it allows me to, you know, those are the places where

I have a connection.

And that makes a difference. And yeah, this idea that you don’t have to be in Metro Maryland to understand Metro Maryland or to do a project there.

Any more than I have to be in St. Augustine, Florida to do something here. I think that’s probably the biggest thing I’ve learned over the last five years is, you know, I tell my adult children all the time this thing that we’re, you know, this connectivity, the electronics and everything else. To me, my phone is a tool.

It’s and I think ⁓ if we can learn to respect and utilize the tools and not fall prey to them as a crutch, the better off we’re going to be.

Quentin Edmonds (27:49)
Man, you said it. I agree with it. Relationships is everything. My dad used to have a saying, and let me see if I can say it right. My dad is saying, says, use things and not use people. Like the connecting with people is everything. These things are just tools that can help us connect with each other better. Don’t make the tool bigger than the person. And so no, I agree with you, man. So listen, before we wrap, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you.

David Hansen (27:55)
That’s it.

You got it. Yeah, There you go.

Quentin Edmonds (28:16)
Maybe collaborate with you. What’s the best way for them to get in contact?

David Hansen (28:19)
Sure. ⁓

can, I said LinkedIn. It’s so funny, I don’t use so many of the, again, I’m lousy with the tools sometimes. They can email me. said, I’m David at openlandcommunities.com, all spelled out. out our website. It needs to be updated, but it’s got a couple of our projects on there. They can meet my partner. My partner, just a great guy, he’s Israeli.

he actually just re he lived, ⁓ he lived in Tel Aviv his entire life. He just relocated his family to Atlanta, like a week or two ago. you know, and you talk about things you can’t imagine, you know, one of our first phone calls, he’s like, can I call you right back? I’m like, sure. And he me back like in two or three minutes. And, ⁓ and I was like, and he, he sat a little bit different. was like, what’s up? goes, an alarm went off. I had to get my kids into the bomb shelter.

Think about that.

Think about that. In a bomb shelter in his house. They all do. It’s a sad thing, but when you, you know, he’s got a 12 year old and a nine year old, can’t imagine their entire lives have been going to bomb shelters. Crazy. Now they’re in Atlanta. And I did tell him, said, listen, if Florida is ever going to lob missiles into Georgia, I’ll let you know in advance.

Quentin Edmonds (29:37)
Yeah,

I hear that. Mr. David bringing the aimer, of course. She love it, yeah. But no, that’s, yeah. Yeah, that’s something. As you was talking, I didn’t even imagine the bombshell to think. yeah, that’s, yeah, yeah, yeah. no, no, no, you good. Yeah, yeah, Exactly.

David Hansen (29:39)
Yeah, so anyway

Yeah, so yeah, I didn’t mean to bring that in, I know it shapes all of us. know, shapes those kind

of things shape. You know, you don’t even think about it. know, we know America’s a different place, man. But but you’re right. Relationships, all those things, it all get all place anyway. So people can they can email me. They can shoot me something on LinkedIn. I’m on there. And.

Quentin Edmonds (30:03)
Exactly. Come on.

Yeah. Yeah.

David Hansen (30:17)
Like I said, I look at things from people every day. I got an email this morning from somebody who saw me on. I’ve done a number of podcasts with people and I get things. So had something this morning. Somebody wanted me look at something in Washington State for them. So later today, I’ll look at it and I’ll give them a aloe pine. I love doing that.

Quentin Edmonds (30:40)
Love that.

David Hansen (30:43)
Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (30:44)
I love that. Well listen Mr. David man, listen, I appreciate you.

I appreciate your time, your story. Listen, I appreciate your perspective. This was, this is great man. This is just what we needed. And so I thank you so much, man. I thank you what you’re doing, I love, hey man, all right man. Listen man, you trying to get some adult kids off the house? Listen, I come, don’t invite me.

David Hansen (30:50)
Anytime, Q.

Well, don’t be a stranger. Don’t be a stranger.

hahahahah ⁓

Quentin Edmonds (31:10)
But no, man,

I appreciate you so much. Thank you so much for being here. And for those that’s… Thank you so much. And for those that’s tuning in, listen, you know, I say this part very slowly. If you got value from this, please make sure you are subscribed. You do not know what angle we’re going to come from, right? It’s about real estate, it’s about investing. But listen, real estate is so much going on, there’s so many people that add value to this space. And so we’re going to make sure that we keep…

David Hansen (31:13)
Yeah. Anytime, Q.

Quentin Edmonds (31:37)
bringing you people that keep adding value to this space that we’re in. And so thank you so much. Make sure you subscribe and we’ll see you one the next time. Mr. David, I appreciate you, sir.