How Investors Are Building Luxury Glamping Resorts on Raw Land

Chris Mitic (00:00)
Thing is, in comparison, you know, a five-acre piece of property, a Tennessee River, because it has water in the river. Yes, that’s more expensive property per acre. If you have a place that’s Hurricane Creek, no water off-grid, we got to bring everything there for you. That’s the cheapest. The island is going to go through the stratosphere. Those are more expensive, they make a lot more revenue. We can turn around again. Remember, just imagine this: being you’re in Utah, and you’re being picked up on a tarmac, jetted into Fort Lauderdale, you’re taken off the jet, you’re put in a helicopter or a boat, and you’re boat right to the actual island, and there’s your five, ten, fifteen acres with 10, 20, 30 dome homes, A-frames, cabins, space capsules, expander homes, all done for you, all booked out at a hundred percent.

Joseph Crooms (02:27)
Hey everyone. Welcome to Investor Fuel Real Estate Pros Podcast. My name is Joseph Crooms I’m your host and I am excited to have someone here that I’ve been waiting to chat with. I think our listeners are going to get taken something away from his approach, his unique name to his business, and he’s going to explain exactly what that is.

and the audience that he wants to talk to. So Chris, say hello to everyone.

Chris Mitic (02:54)
How you doing, everybody? Good.

Joseph Crooms (02:56)
Good. So first of all, for people who may not be familiar with your world, give us the short version. What’s your main focus these days and what markets are you operating?

Chris Mitic (03:08)
So we’re in the guest industry. It stands for glamping, eco-luxury, short-term rental, technology booking AI industry, which means we are in the glamping industry. We take raw land, we turn around and owner finance it, we build out the actual structures on the property. We also book them out, monetize that property, we turn around and finance it.

We do everything inclusive from you from raw land to actual financing. And the best part is every bit of it is a hundred percent tax write-off. So in short, Country Glamping, the brand name, and gest.llc is able to go ahead and take baby boomers, which are fifty-four years old and older, that whole entire generation, and show them how they can go ahead and own.

up to a five million dollar five acre lamping facility project, pay itself off in forty-eight months, and we will do everything for them. And nobody else does this inclusively.

Joseph Crooms (04:19)
Man, I ask you this question. How many deals are you closing in the last three years? Or how many deals have you closed in the last yeah, three years? How many deals have you done?

Chris Mitic (04:27)
So we have gone further than that. So we have already done an MVP, which means we’ve already done the land and owner financed it. We’ve already done the structures and actually installed them and had them go ahead and generate income. We’ve already have customers every day that come to us as we’re doing now. We’re doing multi-million dollar five acre, ten acre, fifty acre facilities.

And we’re actually building those those actual projects out. But the best thing is this is nothing that happens in two weeks or a month. This is more of a three-month, six-month, nine-month project from the beginning to the end. And so very quickly, we’re able to go ahead, provide and build on your property or ours. We’re able to own or finance the project. We’re able to install the structures. We’re able to book them out.

We’re able to monetize and have that project paid off in forty eight months as quick as you wanna go.

Joseph Crooms (06:20)
Do you guys advise them if they s if they sort of agreeing coming into it? Sounds good, but how much do you guide them? How what kinda what does it look from start to close?

Chris Mitic (06:32)
Good question. So we’re the company that inclusively MVP’d, which means we made all this up from raw land to the actual financing. So we take you by the hand and do two things. Number one, we show you other projects, other paperwork, other deals that have happened. So you can compare that to your idea, your dream, your retreat, the way you want to do things.

But we also are a grounded company where we have done this so many times. We tell you what does work and what doesn’t work. But at the same time, you’re able to go ahead and design your own place, come up with your own ideas, and be able to go ahead and we make that happen. But we walk you from the land to the structure to the bookings to the taxes to the financing to the 100% tax write-off. We do it all for you.

or we’ll be more than happy to educate you how to do this because we want you to be the host of your own project.

Joseph Crooms (07:39)
Wow. Chris, what are what projects mostly are people putting up now that are on on these properties? So you got

Chris Mitic (07:49)
Five acres. Yeah. So let me give you the perfect. Let me give you the good, the bad, and the ugly. Okay. And that is the ugly. You can’t really sit there and take one acre and put one building on there. Okay, because you’re not going to really make any money. Okay. So our our our MO is you start with five acres, you put five, ten, fifteen, twenty structures on there. We’re able to do all this for you. If you go on our site, gest.llc

Joseph Crooms (07:51)
They

Chris Mitic (08:17)
You’ll see everything from a space capsule to an expander home to a dome home, an A-frame, a cabin. So we have many different structures, but the end, but the name of the game is to get the land in a good location, get it to where you’re not putting all your money in your land, you’re putting money in the project to get our finance company to approve you and have that one million dollar five acre project built out as quick and as short as possible.

And while we are actually developing it and staging it and erecting and installing, we’re able to go ahead and start now through the booking industry, start booking out those structures at 85%. And if you do the math, we’re able to go ahead and within 24, 36 to 48 months, not only turn around and make all your money back, but you’ll have an actual portfolio.

That’s worth about two and a half to five million dollars. So it’s very fast. It doesn’t take nine months and a year to build out a facility. We like to do five acre, ten acre, twenty-five, fifty acre facilities. And everybody, the minute they sit there and understand this, they want to do more building. They want to do more property. They want to monetize more facilities and they want to go ahead and pay their portfolio off quicker.

Joseph Crooms (09:41)
So Chris, it sounds like you can have some investors that already have property, or they start or they’re involved in property, but now you piqued their interest. Sh tell me how many people have you’ve had that that to reinvest or to take their portfolio for further.

Chris Mitic (10:31)
Okay, so I have three types of customer. The customer comes in and says, Chris, I got a hundred acres, which we do have a hundred acres in Tennessee. I already own the land, Chris. I want to use that as collateral. We want you to come in and build it out, book it out, and make me money, but I don’t want to do it. They just want us to do it. That’s my real number one customer. My number two customer is Chris. We love it. We don’t have land. We don’t know what we’re doing.

We want you to go ahead and provide us with five acres to 50 acres. We want you to take us by the hand. We want you to teach us how to do that, which we’re doing with several customers right now. And in return, we want to be the host on and live there. So you’ll have a person that has five acres, like we have right now at Tennessee River. And in return, they’re going to live out of one of those cabins that they’re actually having built. And the other eight cabins will produce income. They’ll be there.

There’ll be hands-on, they’ll be a host, which actually is great because the finance company, the insurance company, and the actual booking company loves that when you have a built-in team of people that are a host. And then the very third customer is someone that says, Look, Chris, I don’t have any property. I’m a broker. I’m an investor. I love this business. I will just give you the money. You guys turn around and take it. Pick the property, build it out.

Give me mailbox money every single month and have it to where I can turn around and get this paid off in 36 to 48 months. And when they get around the 12th or 18th month and they’re realizing their property is almost paid off, now they want us to go find more properties in more locations, including islands. I S A L A N D, Islands off the coast of Florida, islands off of Belize, islands off South America.

And that’s where the glamping eco luxury industry is really going to. Land in the United States is great. Land throughout the world is great because we can do this worldwide. But islands, that’s where the real money is. And they’re making their money back prospectively on a cash flow analysis in anywhere from twelve to eighteen months.

Joseph Crooms (12:50)
So Chris, you say I can I someone can buy an island and they can own the island and just put everything that they want on there.

Chris Mitic (12:56)
So two factors. Great question. Great question. Two factors. We already have islands. So I have island owners going, Chris, I own the island. I will put up the island. You put up the construction. And of course, we’re able to develop that for them. And we’re able to give them a hundred percent financing. Okay. Or the other person says, I’ll sell you the island, which we are going through right now. We’ll buy the island because we already have the money. We’re able to go ahead and build it out. But guess what? The average

Lamping or island lamping called eco-luxury owner doesn’t want 277 acres. They want five acres. So now we can plat and survey that island and start selling out one, five, ten, fifteen acre facilities, put as many structures, especially space capsules and expand a homes, okay, which are for the island industry, put them out there, book them out.

Have all the toys and amenities, all the deep sea diving, all the snorkeling, all the boating, all the canoeing, everything that you could ever toy that you want, and we’re able to sell that whole package. And now when people are booking those places out to the booking companies, these guys are actually making revenue, whether if it’s one building on one acre or it might be two hundred and seventy-seven-acre island called Hog Island, and we’re looking at putting 70, 80, 90, 100.

actual structures on there and book them out.

Joseph Crooms (14:25)
Amazing. So how much of of this business do remains with y’all that y’all may put up as commercial properties, especially on these islands? You may have certain amenities for you know, snorkeling, fishing and things like that. Do you keep those for yourself or or you find individual best investors because you said on you on the the main

Chris Mitic (14:46)
Parts just like McDonald’s. So McDonald’s might have 80% of their locations are sold as franchises, and then they have 20% that are corporate. Where we’re taking the same outline and we have a lot of people going, Chris, I want to partner with you. You guys know what you’re doing. We can get financing and we can turn around and make this happen, and they can go ahead and partner with me. Okay. But we’re also finding out we’re also going out.

looking and buying up property, which is what we do. And that’s how I got started buying up thousands of acres of property. So we’re buying up the property, we’re cherry picking, we’re taking really nice locations off this, you know, the Tennessee River or off the waterfalls out of New York or off the lakes and counties of Michigan. We’re taking properties that are premier properties and we’re literally sitting there taking them, designing them, actually making them monetize

And so we have in-house corporate deals. Then I have a board of directors and investors investing in the company. And then we have people going, Chris, I want to own my own facility. I want to be able to host my own. I want to partner with you. We need the financing, but we want to be able to go ahead and do the whole entire project. And we and they own the actual portfolio, the land portfolio, and the actual glamping project themselves. So you get both sides, you get best of both worlds.

Joseph Crooms (16:50)
Hmm. So on on in the past year, and this past year in two twenty five or two twenty six, what has your income level been up lifted up to? What is how much business have you generated?

Chris Mitic (17:04)
we’re straight up. I mean, we have not even plateaued out yet. We’re at a point to where you ever heard the old saying, build it and they will come? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, every time you build a facility, you get a ton of more people. I’ve been getting phone calls all this morning because we’re doing Tennessee River and we’re doing other locations like Hurricane Creek Estates. So we’re doing plentiful, a lot of actual

structures and booking out facilities and everything else. But the more we build, the more it gets sold, the more we book, the more it gets rented, the more our portfolio. So we went through, we started this three year only three years ago, okay, with eight five acre lots, just clearing them out and installing these services. And now we’re 776 acres on the Tennessee River, 1600 acres on Hurricane Creek.

We got acreage everywhere and we cannot build it as fast as we build We for every time we build a project, we probably got five, ten, fifteen other customers coming in, taking a look at what we’re doing, and we’re sending over the PL and cash flow analysis and they’re like, This is crazy. You’re s you’re actually paying off a million dollars to five million dollars worth of real estate and glamping projects in forty eight months. It’s unheard of.

There ain’t nobody pays off real estate that fast.

Joseph Crooms (18:32)
Wow, that’s amazing. That’s amazing. Yeah. Chris, where do you want to be in the next twelve months?

Chris Mitic (18:37)
So this is our moving forward. So we are gonna go ahead and start actually right during the summer, we’re gonna be down on the islands. We’re gonna start acquiring an arbitrating islands. So we’ll start taking owner islands and buying islands. We will start that MVP. And once we get to the point where we’re doing local United States islands, we will move into, of course, now we’re getting ready to have an offer to go to Greece and start

Buying property there and building lamping. Remember, we’re not doing hotels, we’re not doing big houses, we’re not doing the regular stuff that everybody else has done. We’re doing short, sweet, nice, makes money, pays itself off in 48 months, and we’re able to now start looking at doing this worldwide. And we got people because remember, people are distressed right now. They’re selling properties, they’re selling homes, they’re getting out of their liabilities.

And we’re able to take that raw land and now turn it into something that actually monetizes and pays itself off in forty eight months. But we’re able to do this worldwide. We’re gonna go as far as this concept and this project will allow us worldwide.

Joseph Crooms (19:50)
Let’s take a shift now. now I know a lot of people listening are are early in their journey or looking to level up, and I think that they’ll benefit from hearing this. When it comes to building relationships, now I know it’s more of a practical question, and growing your network, what’s been the biggest difference from you? Can you go sh go back a little bit and share us what you were thinking, how you how you developed?

Chris Mitic (20:14)
Well, as far as me developing this concept or dealing with the customers and showing how

Joseph Crooms (20:20)
Yeah, that or your whole team, the customer, your team developers, your your your

Chris Mitic (20:25)
Yeah.

Well, everybody has to be educated in this business because it’s not something that’s normal. Not the average person. Actually, if you use the word glamping, eco luxury, short term rental, or guest industry, nine out of ten people have no idea what you’re talking about. But the minute you explain it to them

Everybody knows how to buy a house. Everybody wants to own land. Everybody wants to make money off their property. Everybody wants to go ahead and try to find a way to pay that off and have a multi-million dollar portfolio. We figured it out. We did each step by step. We MVP’d it. We made sure it worked. We didn’t go big. We went small. And now that we did every step that I just explained in this podcast, not only can we do all of it and show all of it.

Now we got now we have the ability to take anybody, whether if you’re a Gen Z, New Millennium, Gen X, Baby Boomers One and Two, or the Great Age, which is beyond us. Okay, we’re able to take anybody and show them how for very little bit of money and their credit score, 100% financing, and we’re able to go ahead and the finance company will definitely go ahead and finance that project and get you trained.

And educated in this industry where you can turn around and not only do this, but we will do everything for you only because we made all those mistakes over the last three years. We sat there and did all the installs. We made the money. We answered all the questions. And this is not cut out for everybody Some people, after they get in, they want to get out. So that’s why we’re going use this podcast.

And we’re gonna go ahead and start telling people we’re gonna start coming out with a 60-month guarantee. If that project is not paid off in 60 months, we will actually put the money in and make up the difference. That’s how confident we are in this program.

Joseph Crooms (22:30)
So you can’t fake these relationships that you built. Let’s get down to like metric. What is the low end customer that that you’ve attracted to get into this? How much money do they need?

Chris Mitic (22:45)
We’ve had good, bad, and the ugly. We’ve had the customer comes in and that’s all they want to do is buy five acres and put their little shed in on the property, and they don’t want to do anything. That’s not our customer, and we have to figure that out. Okay. But the low end is you can go ahead and do, we average about a quarter of a million to a million dollar project. You don’t do as many acres, you don’t do as many buildings, you do smaller stuff. But of course, the same thing is

You’re not going to make as much money. Because remember, whether if you take five acres and put one building on there, or take the same five acres and put 20 buildings on there, the PL is going to be definitely different. Okay. And the finance company is going to see that. And us as a builder and contractor and developer, and we’re the ones doing this for you, we also see it. So we’re trying to get qualified customers, and that’s where we came up with the baby boomers one and two.

Most of these people are 54 years old and older. They already have a credit score of 700 or more. They already have either the house paid off and they want to go ahead and own property. They already have property. They don’t have property. They want us to take them by the hand and do this. So pretty much everybody’s qualified, but that’s something that we take a look at as a company. That’s why I have a board of directors. That’s why we have professionals on our team.

And we’re able to go ahead and find out if that’s a good fit. Because it’s not the property, it’s not the structures, it’s not booking, and it’s not the actual financing, it’s the relationship that you have with the customer. That’s most important.

Joseph Crooms (24:26)
Chris, the last question let me ask you this. What about the island, the ones on on the islands? How how you know how do you sell them?

Chris Mitic (24:33)
What do you mean on the app hours?

Joseph Crooms (24:34)
So you have your your five or five acres and you said on the on the islands that you have, they make you make smaller. ⁓ what’s the what’s the qualifying factor? The same same criteria you have

Chris Mitic (24:47)
Thing is, in comparison, you know, a five-acre piece of property, a Tennessee River, because it has water in the river. Yes, that’s more expensive property per acre. If you have a place that’s Hurricane Creek, no water off-grid, we got to bring everything there for you. That’s the cheapest. The island is going to go through the stratosphere. Those are more expensive, they make a lot more revenue. We can turn around again. Remember, just imagine this: being you’re in Utah.

And you’re being picked up on a tarmac, jetted into Fort Lauderdale, you’re taken off the jet, you’re put in a helicopter or a boat, and you’re boat right to the actual island, and there’s your five, ten, fifteen acres with 10, 20, 30 dome homes, A-frames, cabins, space capsules, expander homes, all done for you, all booked out at a hundred percent.

Not fifty or eighty-five, but booked out at a hundred percent, and now your chart and your money shows you it pays itself off in twelve months. You’re gonna want more islands, you’re gonna want more buildings, you’re gonna want to go ahead and invest more. That’s why it’s a proven factor that not only does this work, but nobody else is doing it, it’s because they haven’t figured out all these hurdles to go through from land.

to actual 100%. Plus the last trump card is it’s a hundred percent tax write-off. Everything that you’re doing is a hundred percent tax write-off. It doesn’t cost you anything to do this.

Joseph Crooms (26:23)
Well. All right, Chris, you gave a lot of information and ⁓ so and and this information you gave me is important, it’s gonna be very important to you. All right. If someone wanted to reach out to connect with you, maybe collaborate, learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way to reach you?

Chris Mitic (26:42)
So the brand name is called Country Glamping. Okay. Our site is, of course, gest.llc. And it’s not guest as in G-U-E-S-T. It’s short. G E S T. Glamping, Eco Luxury, Short Term Rental Booking. I mean technical booking AI. So GEST LLC

We’ll give you the website that will show you everything that we’re doing, all the structures, the process, everything. CountryGlampingUSA.com is the development site that shows you exactly all the stuff that we do and prices that we charge for developing. And whether it’s your land or our land, we want to be able to go ahead and provide you with these services one hundred percent worldwide.

Joseph Crooms (27:32)
Well Chris, thank you so much. Well, I appreciate your time, your vision, and how you’re fulfilling your vision and your philosophy and I think you’ll be way ahead of a lot of people before they even catch up to what you’re thinking.

Chris Mitic (27:46)
Yeah, by the time people figure this out, we’ll already probably have an exit, we’ll be done.

Joseph Crooms (27:53)
we need more people in the space who are doing the right the the right things the right way. thanks for being here. And for those of you tuning in if and I know you got some value from this, reach out to Chris. he he gave that information to you. you have it. make sure you subscribe to this channel. We got more conversations coming from operators just like Chris, who are there building real businesses.