How to Make Money With Land: Wholesaling, Development & Passive Income

Austin Marvel (00:00)
Okay, we need this many doors, like seven or eight cash flowing doors to bring us ten to twenty thousand dollars a month. So we’ve messed around with arbitrage. You know what I’m talking about where you can

Basically do a master lease and then make the profit on the top just by having good management. We’ve got solid management in place. And then the multifamily aspects, small stuff, triplexes and duplexes, and then higher end single families. So we’ve got a little portfolio that typically it’s about fifteen thousand dollars per month net. And that’s just it covers everything. Which is like biggest life hack on the planet, by the way.

Joseph Crooms (02:09)
Hey everyone, welcome to Investor Fuel Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m your host, Joseph Crooms. I’m here, I’m joined by someone, unique, unique young man doing some real business. His name, I love his name.

Austin Marvel who’s out there making serious moves in the industry. I’m gonna let him talk about it. I’m gonna sort of ask him some good questions, but hey, Austin, say hello to everybody.

Austin Marvel (02:35)
Hey, what’s happening guys? Thanks for tuning in. I’m glad you’re here.

Joseph Crooms (02:38)
Thank you, Austin. I think our listeners are really going to take away from how you approach business. So let’s the first thing I like to ask you. So what is the lead lenders program? Is that is that that’s is is that correct?

Austin Marvel (02:54)
Almost. It was close. So I run a community called The Land League. The Land League. And

Joseph Crooms (03:00)
Okay.

Austin Marvel (03:01)
It’s just a community of like-minded individuals wanting to better themselves.

Joseph Crooms (03:05)
Go into that a little more.

Austin Marvel (03:06)
Right. So I, you know, I got into the land niche of real estate for a while. And I I found there’s so many people, traditional investors who are buying duplexes, buying rentals, even multifamily. And they’re like, man, I don’t know much about land. So they kept coming to me asking me questions. And I just don’t have the time to sit there and answer so many questions that are kind of like basic questions. The verbiage, the rhetoric around land. So we created a community around land.

Not just as a wholesale business or development business, but kind of the community aspect. And a lot of the people they want to live on property on big pieces of land. Kind of the homestead thing, the off-grid dream. And, you know, so I I put together this community that does two things. It it does an awesome community aspect. And we talk a lot about living on land, the pros and the cons, the challenges that come with that. And then also in a real estate fashion, like how that can be used as a vehicle to

You know, make a lot of money, whether that’s passive or active income.

Joseph Crooms (04:08)
Do you have a how did you branch into this? Do do you have a a real estate business yourself that’s the base that’s giving you the financial leverage that you need?

Austin Marvel (04:18)
Yeah, yeah, man. I started out, I started out with like a lot of people do. You know, you buy a house, you live in it, and then when you move out, if you can, instead of having to sell that house to go buy a new house, you actually can turn it into a rental, get a little bit of cash flow. And that just comes with a whole list of headaches, but pros and also some cons. We did it for a long term strategy for our kids and also it’s just a really great mechanism.

Like a savings account, if you will. Like it’s just always appreciating and other people are paying for it. But I I thought there’s gotta be a better way. I don’t want to be a wholesaler of houses. So I started going into the idea of like everybody wants land, but they don’t know how to get it. They don’t know like if it’s a good deal. And so we started just utilizing our resources to help people get land. And that turned into kind of like a high frequency wholesale trading business where we it was just a grind.

For those of you wholesalers out there, you know, like there’s no escaping that grind in a wholesale business. And so now we’ve kind of shifted more into like the development side of things where we’re doing subdivides and entitlements and creating things that will really outlive me and even the next generation. It’s creating community.

Joseph Crooms (06:21)
Austin. So so you you’re you’re a multi-business man. Am I correct? That’s what you’re really saying to me. How you

Austin Marvel (06:26)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joseph Crooms (06:28)
So what what is your book of business like in the volume of of your profile right now?

Austin Marvel (06:35)
Yeah, so we’ve we send out mailers, we send out like text and cold call, we’ve done all that. And a lot of the volume has come down, like I was mentioning, ’cause we’re not doing as much high frequency wholesale, you know, make ten grand, make twenty grand, and we’re really focusing on the bigger projects that might take fourteen to eighteen months of like a lot of meticulous back and forth with the counties, civil engineers and and all sorts of tradesmen that kind of work in that that transaction.

But it’s much bigger payoff. It works for my work-life balance. So in terms of volume, we’ve definitely brought that down because we’re like, man, we are just grinding. And both me and one of my business partners, we have kids, and it’s like, this is just not, this is not gonna work. So we brought the volume way down, but we have identified the properties that we want to buy and we’re constantly just pinging these people. Is now the right time? You know, you want some money, that kind of thing.

Joseph Crooms (07:30)
We’ll get into that little more. So w what is your book of business like on a monthly basis?

Austin Marvel (08:22)
Yeah, on a are you sp specifically on the land business?

Joseph Crooms (08:26)
Whatever, you c let’s say cumulative.

Austin Marvel (08:29)
Yeah,

Yeah, yeah. So it’s a good question, man. For our residential side of things, I mean, we are like we don’t want to pay a mortgage, right? That’s that’s pretty obvious. We don’t want to have to cover our living expenses. And that can vary per individual. But for us, we came up with that number and we’re like,

Okay, we need this many doors, like seven or eight cash flowing doors to bring us ten to twenty thousand dollars a month. So we’ve messed around with arbitrage. You know what I’m talking about where you can

Basically do a master lease and then make the profit on the top just by having good management. We’ve got solid management in place. And then the multifamily aspects, small stuff, triplexes and duplexes, and then higher end single families. So we’ve got a little portfolio that typically it’s about fifteen thousand dollars per month net. And that’s just it covers everything. Which is like biggest life hack on the planet, by the way.

Because it can be set up to where it’s almost passive if you’ve got good management. So that’s just the residential side. And then on the land side of things, like I said, we were doing frequencies that were, you know, two to three transactions a month. And that volume, it comes with a price. And that’s like emotional baggage. It’s stress. You’re taking on a lot of debt. You’re having to answer people right away. And it just wasn’t working for our life. And those transactions, you know, we’ve made like $70,000 on a wholesale fee.

Which is substantial, but it’s just it wasn’t worth like the amount of energy that it was sucking from us. So, like I mentioned, you know, you do a a big land deal that’s like a entitlement project, and you can expect to net two fifty, double or triple that, but it might take you a year to do. So having a couple of those in the pipeline has definitely helped us to like I again, it’s hard to quantify on a exact monthly basis.

But you we’re sending out marketing to do volume still. It’s just on the bigger properties. So we’re being really, really picky and choosy on what projects we want to take on right now. And then everything else that trickles in is like we’ll put them in a nurture stream in our CRM and we will just constantly hit them until they die or the property sells, essentially.

Joseph Crooms (10:39)
Awesome. You keep saying we. Tell me about your partners.

Austin Marvel (10:42)
Yeah, yeah. So in all the things that I do, I’ve I’ve learned early on who, not how, right? I’m sure I’m sure you’ve learned that in the real estate game. So I’ve got an awesome business partner out of Chicago. He’s an AI consultant, genius. I really don’t deserve his time or energy. But we partnered up on the land business in hopes of doing, you know, creating lasting communities. And we started, we cut our teeth doing the the wholesale thing and

And the high frequency and it just was not it. So he’s a genius. His name’s Nick Turnbull. You guys should look him up, especially if you’re in the Chicagoland area. The guys that he’s

Joseph Crooms (11:20)
Hope

Hopefully you refer him to the show. We’d love to have him here. So he can talk we can talk about you now as well, yeah. Because I’m pretty sure you think you’re awesome too. So Austin, let me ask you this. So you’re you’re you’re an established businessman. And what is how would you describe your business to someone that knows nothing about real estate? How would you describe that? What you do?

Austin Marvel (12:26)
Yeah, that’s always like the scoreboard, right? If you’re if your friends or family can explain what you do, then you’re not doing enough, right? So to try to sum it up, you know, I’ve got a development company where we’re that’s not a short term thing. That’s something that we built out to, like I said, long outlive me and my future generation to build lasting communities and to basically create things like homestead dream for people. And and if I don’t want to get too preachy here, but like my my

Mount Everest, the North Star, is to create lasting communities that get people on the land so they can experience creation. And ideally, they have some kind of experience with the Creator. So that is take that as you will, I will do anything and everything to get me to that North Star. Meanwhile, we’ve you know always looking at deals from the residential side to either buy or help another partner in another market. So

You know, really it’s just creating community, man. I feel like we are so underserved on that front. And a lot of times you have to take responsibility and create your own local community, like host some meetups, you know, host the masterminds, get people in the room and elevate that frequency. Take that if you know, a lot of my people who are like W-2, it’s hard to understand that, but it comes down to rentals and land essentially.

Joseph Crooms (13:44)
Thank you, Austin. Hey Austin, what markets are you operating in?

Austin Marvel (13:48)
Yeah, great question, man. I love I love the southern states. You mentioned earlier you’re from Savannah. I live here in Charleston, South Carolina. The Carolinas are really something special, not just to live in, but you know, economically. There’s there’s a lot of really cool things happening here. And it it seems that a lot of like the secret got out, right? The cat’s out of the bag. A lot of people are starting to find out what’s going on down here. They’re trying to get out of places like Dearborn and

New Jersey, New York, and they want to go to some southern states. I was just in Portland, Oregon. Man, that’s such a cool city. Such a cool city. But there were people sleeping on the streets, drugs like just blatantly on the streets. And I have a friend who is a SWAT team member out there, and he was a cop for years and years and years. And I just got a talk with him of like, man, how much has Portland changed? And it just broke my heart because it’s such

Beautiful, awesome place. And now it has become what a lot of people feared it would become. And they want to get to places like the Carolinas. So hands down, South, Southern States is just more friendly for what I’m trying to do. And it’s also a awesome place to live. So Southern states.

Joseph Crooms (15:00)
You know, Austin, I detect that you’re very sensitive and very spiritual. How do you protect the your

Investments into the Carolinas, how does how do you help not turn it into a Portland?

Austin Marvel (15:16)
Yeah. Man. Yeah. We might go spiritual here. That’s that’s weird. All right. Listen, man, I I pray for my tenants. I pray for my customers. I pray for my sellers, and they know that. Like I’m open about it. I don’t meet all my tenants or, you know, the people that I buy property from or the people that I sell property from, but we’re almost always hugging by the end of it if if we do have an interaction. I treat them like family. You know, these are people who

Even if they’re moving into one of your properties, like they are they are changing their life and you are having a role in that. You know, I’ve had people who like they’re getting a major operation done and they just need a place to live for nine months. And then I get the chance to meet them and we’ll sit and talk for like an hour or two. And, you know, by the end of that, they are like, I’m gonna treasure this property. This person deeply cares about me and my experience. And I think that them meeting someone

In South Carolina who gives them that kind of experience of like, hey, I just I genuinely care about you and what you’re going through and whatever it is that you’re about to do. I think that that actually kind of protects your property. Now that’s not sustainable as your portfolio grows. I can’t do that with every tenant that moves in or out. I barely like I have managers in place, so don’t talk to them much anymore. But designing spaces around that right there, I think that that’s why people like Airbnb

From a host perspective. Now hosting Airbnb is not always sunshine and rainbows, but when it goes like that and you gotta meet the people, you’re like you feel good about it. So just, you know, shining light and every chance that I can. And like I said earlier about hosting the masterminds and the meetups and bringing together communities. I’m really into communities of men in specific. And once you get around me, like I’m not afraid

To talk about how the Holy Spirit’s worked in my life. And it’s it’s inevitable to see with my family and my trajectory and everything. I’ve seen miracle after miracle after miracle. And I tried to deny it for so long. I’m like, I can’t explain what that was. But I think that you can relate. I think something crazy’s happening in your life. So anyways, I don’t want to get too into that, but I could. I could definitely

Joseph Crooms (17:30)
Also let me ask you, what is the foundations of how you approach each of your businesses? What is it that you bring in that you that also when it comes out money-wise, but it’s what is the found what is what is the core values of your your approach to business?

Austin Marvel (17:48)
Yeah. Yeah, man. Thank you for asking that. So abundance and prosperity, I think these are things that when you first get into investing, you’re kind of like it’s so hard. Like it it might not work. You know, you have all these mental blocks, if you will. But if you can realize that we were designed to live abundant lives and, you know, money is just a tool that kind of

It sh it reflects value, value that you bring to your properties or to your tenants or your clients or customers. I believe wholeheartedly that we were intrinsically designed to reflect abundance and prosperity in everything that we do. And what I said earlier was shine your light. I’m kind of dancing around the subject there, but everybody has a light inside. And when they get in alignment with their divine assignment, then that light tends to shine through.

So anything that I do where I just I’m not feeling it or maybe I get a bad vibe about something, I’m immediately like, no, I don’t know, I don’t I I can’t participate in that. It’s got to be in alignment with what we’re trying to do.

You know what I mean?

Joseph Crooms (18:51)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and and and let me share this with you. This is what this show’s about, to for real people to talk about real things. So that’s why that question came to mind. What are the core values that you have established in your business? So thank you for sharing that. So on the same line, what’s been the key to keeping your business running smoothly?

Austin Marvel (19:11)
Yeah, it’s tough, man. Running any business is hard. You always come up with you don’t, but y things come up in life, existential circumstances that are out of your control. And I think if you can come back to like why are we doing this? What is my why? Then you will stop at nothing to get it done. You will put your back against the wall

Financially, you’ll put your back against the wall in terms of time, you’ll sacrifice sleep. And if it’s that important to you, you will make it happen. So earlier when I said, you know, get in alignment with your divine assignment, I think when you feel assigned or called to do what you’re doing, there’s no there is no loss. There like even if you fail, you get back up and you try again and you realize that that failure was just a learning lesson. You don’t have to learn that with an extra comma

In play. You can learn that, you know, a thousand dollar mistake versus a hundred thousand dollar mistake. And I’ve seen that over and over and over again. Where something might seem like a disappointment, I accept it, I internalize and say, okay, on to the next thing. And that next step, two, three steps down the road, I look back, like, thank God that I had to experience that because I learned it, like it I was able to bring something to the table here because I learned this thing back here. So resilience, man. I

I went to I don’t know if you met Rhea Campbell, but I went to one of her events and it was all about resilience as an investor. And you really need it’s more than thick skin. You need to know that what you’re doing matters and it’s part of a journey that you’re on as an individual investor or a team, like it it’s important to have that that mindset. People call it all sorts of different things, but I hope that helps answer the question.

Joseph Crooms (20:54)
So, you know, we’re we’re coming down the the wire because I really asked you some different questions. Austin, what I what I would like to really do to help you as well, I want you to name, go into a brief of each one of your businesses and also tell people how to get in touch with you for that niche. I want to do that on this podcast and I hope that is a blessing so for you can bring things out. So let’s start with the one in your your symbol and your hat. What

Talk about that business.

Austin Marvel (21:23)
Yeah, man, I’d love to. So one of the businesses that got me into this whole thing, I I have been a professional photographer. That probably explains cameras is one of my one of my babies here. And I I really was like, I want to travel to Alaska, I want to go to Montana. And I was from out west as a guide. So I was always in the backcountry taking epic photos of landscapes. And then I got a gig for this big land developer.

Where they were sending me to properties all around the country. I’d go stay on this thousand-acre ranch for a week and just shoot the wildlife, shoot like what could life look like out here? So, really, it was a marketing and content business for that specific niche. I became one of the best in the industry to do it. For one of the best developers and liquidators that were out there, moving massive numbers. And that opened up the doors to a land business where I’m actually buying properties.

Either putting them on the market or selling them off market, which is easier to do. And especially when you I was able to dip into my own marketing company, I knew how to do this for people who are selling premium properties. So I was putting out really awesome marketing content for our own properties. Easier to do when you’re in the market, obviously, which is why I like Carolinas and southern states. So marketing company, which is kind of

Content and filmmaking, but it’s gone into like the AI consulting space, which then has led to a land wholesale and development space. And both of those companies kind of piggyback off of each other, which then opened up the door for well, people want to learn about this. I’m not going to teach online and charge and do a whole community, but I’m open to do in person events. So I’ve done in person events that are a lot about what we’ve just talked about, kind of spirit alignment with your

Business assignment and doing those in person retreats. Have you ever met Jerry Norton? We’ve got one coming up in October at his farm in Tennessee.

That kind of went into in person events, which are, you know, around business, around land and AI and around living on land and just from the best, you know, really filtered, curated room of just higher self individuals. So we really lift the frequency over the weekend. And then that turned into like a backpacking mastermind, like a backcountry mastermind for men only.

Which I don’t know if you’ve ever slept outside, but this is one of those things that man, we do miles under our feet and it brings out the best of a man. I was just

Joseph Crooms (23:52)
So I was a scout executive. So I love the outdoors, man.

Austin Marvel (23:55)
Let’s go. Yeah, we just did thirty-five miles like on the PCT out in the Northwest and that was life changing for everybody. And everyone was like a real estate investor. So it ended up people were JVing and doing deals by the time we got back. And that wasn’t even the intent, but it was true.

Joseph Crooms (24:12)
So that’s one business, Richard. So that’s that’s the the symbol in your hat.

Austin Marvel (24:15)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Land League is kind of the umbrella for all that. So it media, AI and content, a land business, an actual land business, like wholesale and development, and then a in-person event business, if you will, and then also like a residential portfolio that they all kind of tie together. And if I can keep it simple with those four entities for the rest of my life.

It’s a pretty awesome like work-life balance. I know there’s gonna be more that’s gonna be added in and become, you know, that it’s a big spider web of things. But those four businesses are like my babies, you know, I I give what I what I have and they’re they’re going to outlive me. They’re things that are so much bigger than, you know, making a little bit of money while here. So

Joseph Crooms (25:00)
And briefly, what are you thinking about leveling solving or scaling next?

Austin Marvel (25:04)
Yeah, man. That so the development each one of them has their own like Mount Everest, right? That they all kind of go towards that overarching Mount Everest of creating lasting communities where people can experience the land. And there’s a project that we’re working on on an island here in South Carolina. I don’t want to say too much, but there’s an island here in South Carolina where we are creating like a luxury RV resort.

And it’s not high density where people are all just next to each other, hundreds of sites on, you know, 20 acres or whatever. But it’s a little bit of a bigger piece of property, two minutes from the beach, and just an incredible piece of property. And we’re making these kind of like estate tracts where people can come and bring their RV and these are motor coaches. People bring their Class A motor coaches. Right. And just amazing piece of property. So that’s that’s taking a lot of headspace and working with a

Ecologist, a conservationalist to do development in a little bit of a different way to still be economically mind blowing, but at the same time not ruin the land. You know, I want the land to be that’s a priority. How do we preserve this incredible development? So that’s probably like my my right there in my face every day project that every day we’re we’re just chipping away at that, you know.

Joseph Crooms (26:21)
Listen, tell us how to get in touch with you.

Austin Marvel (26:24)
Yeah, find me. I’m probably the most active on Instagram. Like literally, I will respond to Instagram quicker than I would respond to a text. You can just look up my name, Austin Marvel, you’ll find me. But also I’d love for if someone wanted to join The Land League Facebook group or maybe we have a Skool community called The Land League and we teach the land side of our business for free. Like we give it away for free. It’s we don’t charge for anything.

And that obviously if someone wants to come to our in person events, I’d love to put a face to the name. All those you can find all that by just DMing me on Instagram or find me on the internet by my name. I would love to meet all of all the people that tune into your stuff. And I know it’s a lot, man. You got you’ve done really well with this show. That

Joseph Crooms (27:06)
Thank you.

Austin Marvel (27:07)
Takes time and eff effort, man. You’ve created a lot of value for the industry. Like give yourself credit.

Joseph Crooms (27:11)
Thank

You, man. Listen, perfect. I wish we had more time to spend with with Mr. Marvel here. Excuse me, Austin Austin, but but I love his name. I appreciate your time, Austin. I I appreciate your perspective, your spiritualism, and your guidance, and and your philosophy that’s been developed. We need more people and spaces are doing it the in the right way. Thanks again for being here, Austin.

Austin Marvel (27:37)
Thank you, brother. I appreciate the time.

Joseph Crooms (27:38)
And for those of you tuning in, I know you got some value from Mr. Austin Marvel. Make sure you subscribe. Make sure we got more conversations coming from operators, just like our guest, Austin, who’s out there building real business, building communities, worried about helping people be wise and and and careful about our planet that’s keeping it safe. So I’ll see you on the next episode.

Of Investor Fuel Real Estate Pros Podcast. See you there. Austin. Tell everybody to talk to him very soon.

Austin Marvel (28:15)
Yeah, talk to you soon guys. Thank you. Look forward to the conversation