Trevor’s Journey from Ranch to Riches

Dylan Silver (00:00.546)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Dylan Silver. And today on the show, we have fellow Texan real estate entrepreneur and investor, Trevor Probandt. Trevor, welcome to the show.

Trevor Probandt (00:15.372)
Thanks man, I appreciate you.

Dylan Silver (00:18.848)
Absolutely, I like to start off at the top by asking folks how they got into the real estate space initially.

Trevor Probandt (00:26.838)
Yeah, I was born and raised on a cattle ranch outside of San Angelo, And so my family has been ranching since 1929.

And so we grew up in the middle of nowhere out there, but in early 1990s, my dad, my uncle, and my granddad started buying and doing simple subdivides of rural recreational land. So taking great big giant ranches and cut them into pastures and basically how the fences were already set up and then selling those for more value just because of the force appreciation that comes from there.

I not just me, but my family and stuff has done 55 to 60,000 acres in the last few decades of that, right? Kind of as a side piece, but in 2016, I kind of got it into buying and then selling on owner finance terms, smaller pieces of track, smaller tracks. And then in 2020, me and a couple other guys went pretty big into buying and subdividing places. Our very first big deal we did was in Sutton County.

and that was 2,424 acres that we cut into 12 different tracks. Yes, 12 different tracks. And of course, this is right in middle of 2021 when interest rates were nothing. And we sold that whole thing out in like nine months from when we bought it to we sold it out and made 1.79 million on it. So, and then it’s just been kind of to the races on that.

Dylan Silver (02:03.886)
So you were born into the real estate game, but you took it to a whole other level.

Trevor Probandt (02:08.982)
Yeah, I mean, yeah, it just, you know, my dad and uncle and granddad had only worked, you know, only done as many deals that was kind of in their pocket. They had my dad is a real estate appraiser and broker. My uncle had another job. And so they’d always done it. You know, just they made way more money doing that than their day jobs, but they just always, they never looked to for other investors. They just did whatever they had in their pocket. You know what I mean? And if it took longer to turn a deal, then it took longer to turn a deal. But I remember, you know, and I’m older, I’m 42, but like my dad in the early 2000s,

When but coming up before the big bust, you know, they were doing these deals and man in 2015 2005 2006 2007 like right before everything busts and they got lucky they timed it right But I mean, I remember my dad they made they bought a place Had it under contract. They showed a bunch of people and they had it bought out I mean, that’s how crazy the things were in like 90 days and made you know made Six seven eight hundred thousand bucks, right basically paid for me and my brother and sister

Dylan Silver (03:04.898)
Yeah.

Trevor Probandt (03:08.906)
college right on one on one deal in 90 days and so obviously you know after that it dove off you know when in the Great Recession and things like that but I mean that’s that’s what you can do when when things are when things are good yeah

Dylan Silver (03:25.742)
Trevor, you mentioned subdivisions, and I know very little about this area of the real estate space. Without giving away all the game here, walk us through a deal in this space.

Trevor Probandt (03:39.49)
There’s three types of this, okay? And so you have a subdivision like a platted high density subdivision like what, you know, houses, you know, houses on houses kind of deal, right? That’s going to be usually within city limits. It’s going to have, you know, a sewer water, you know, city sewer water, things like that. Then what you have is what we call boutique subdivision or acreage product. So the state of Texas, as long as you have one acre and above, sometimes it’s one and a half acres and above, depending on where you’re

at you can drill a water well and can put your own septic system in without having to run sewer or water. Okay that right there is a product that is slept on in a lot of ways. You still have to plat, you still have to build roads that are going to be taken over by the county right. They’re going to be more expensive, they’re going be asphalt roads 26 feet wide meet specifications to be able to taken over for maintenance by the county. However you don’t have to build the curb and gutter, you don’t have to do all the

of all the sidewalks, things like that, right? And so that is a great opportunity to come in and buy 30, 40 acres, right? Especially your neck of the woods, right? You got something up and down the corridor there. You get something towards Sanger that’s 30 acres, right? But it’s, you know, maybe it’s six miles or six minutes from the interstate. Now it’s got a good shape on it. You can build a road to it. You can cul-de-sac it. You’re going to build 25 one acre lots, right? You bought that for 30,000 bucks an acre. You’re going to spend another 20,000 bucks

an acre, 20 to 24,000 bucks an acre to develop it, and you’re going to sell those individual lots for 150 to 200,000 bucks. The bad thing with that is sometimes, depending on where you’re at, what market, what your price point is, things like this, it may take you one, two, three years to sell all that out. That’s why you don’t try to build 300 of those one acre lots. It just doesn’t make sense. You’re very surgical with that. Then what we have is what’s rule subdivision, which means

Dylan Silver (05:34.51)
Do you Trevor?

Trevor Probandt (05:39.146)
all tracks are 10 acres and above in the state of Texas. A lot of times what we do, especially out where I’m at, they can be hundred acre lots, right? That they are used for hunting and recreational usage. But that’s where you don’t have to come through, you don’t have go through all the platting process. It’s real quick, meets and balance surveys. Sometimes you have to plat it just depending on the county. But that’s the real easy way of buying 100 acres. It’s all got frontage on it. You cut them into 10 acre tracks with a new survey and now you double the value of it.

So those are the three kind of ways that we do stuff.

Dylan Silver (06:14.862)
Do you have a preferred, you mentioned a couple different strategies there. Do you have one that you’ve been leaning towards lately or is it just different based on every circumstance?

Trevor Probandt (06:23.992)
Man, right now I’m really trying to lean towards the acreage lot production stuff, the what we call boutique subdivisions that are very close to large MSAs, Houston, Dallas, you know, all that stuff that people want to be near. You’ve got very good buyers and people can afford four or five $600,000 estate kind of homes on it. That’s the kind of stuff that I’m really, really working on right now.

Dylan Silver (06:52.366)
I’ve noticed this trend, which is gonna, I think, change the real estate game, of builders who build subdivisions ending up owning the homes instead of selling them. Thoughts.

Trevor Probandt (07:05.75)
Yeah, that’s just a bill to rent, right? That’s a whole another ballgame. That’s a whole another ballgame. Yeah, man, I think that kind of sucks to be honest with you, right? Like, I mean, that’s big money coming in, right? Like that’s…

Dylan Silver (07:09.08)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (07:18.264)
Yeah.

Trevor Probandt (07:22.584)
If you look at anyone, especially the baby boomers and things like this, being able to own assets and a lot of times what assets can you get into that will appreciate at the level that real estate will, especially in the state of Texas, for three to five percent down, it’s basically impossible. You couldn’t have gone in even in 2005 and bought a whole bunch of stock, even Apple stock for 10 grand when you could have bought a house in Roy City that was $150,000.

$430,000 bucks that’s now $400,000. You just, you can’t do it, right? Plus the tax benefits, things like that. I just, I think it sucks. The returns are good, but I think it sucks, right, overall.

Dylan Silver (08:08.544)
It’s one of those deals where when I got into the real estate space, I’m not cut from the real estate cloth. I was actually working for Nissan in San Antonio. It’s one of the bigger dealerships in South Texas for Nissan. And I saw that I had the things that I wanted in life or so I thought. I had a nice apartment. I had a nice car. I still have Dodge Challenger, had the Hemi, so was like, my life’s good.

But I was seeing real estate prices go up and up and up and me thinking how can I partake in this game? Like even having a rental property seemed so outlandish. And again Trevor, I wasn’t cut from the cloth. So when I was going to my buddies who had no interest in like owning lots of real estate or they kind of thought that was a pipe dream and I was like yeah there’s this thing it’s called like cash for keys. There’s also this wholesale thing and

I heard about this guy who is basically like flipping the paper and I wasn’t even doing a good job of explaining it to my buddies and so it just sounded so crazy to them but now I look at it and when I hear builders talking about owning the homes instead of

selling them at the end of the build, I’m thinking like that’s just another reason why people have to get into the real estate space kind of now. It’s like the old adage, like when was the best time to plant the tree? Well, it was five years ago. When’s the next best time? It’s today. owning real estate is, think, not going to get any.

Trevor Probandt (09:31.16)
100%.

Dylan Silver (09:34.792)
Easier there it’s practically a blood sample that they make you to do for a loan right now I don’t think that’s gonna get a whole lot easier and it’s only gonna get more competitive in Texas like you’re you know Every area you’re out there in San Angelo you mentioned the four majors, you know, Houston Dallas San Antonio Austin But right now we have the 35 corridor that goes from Dallas to Oklahoma like one and there’s just cities that are expanding up along that so Sooner I know this sounds crazy, but it’s not too much of a far down the road

where we talk about the Texas market kind of just becomes one big deal with Oklahoma up there.

Trevor Probandt (10:11.532)
Well, I’ve talked to a couple folks that are very smart talking about 75 corridor, right? Obviously, Collin County, know, as hot as hot it can get. But you know, when they’re talking about McKinney and Frisco being kind of the center of North Texas, right? Of the Dallas hub, you’re like, holy smokes. Yeah, it’s insane. It really is. Yeah. For sure.

Dylan Silver (10:29.602)
was crazy. mean, you can. mean, I live an hour, honestly, more than that. I live an hour away if there’s like no traffic from downtown Dallas. And I don’t even think about driving in there because I still consider myself in DFW and I think people in Denton do. But just Texas in general, there’s so much opportunity here. Pivoting a bit here, Trevor, as someone who is not a native Texan myself, I’ve seen elsewhere. Right. So I lived in New Jersey. That’s where I was born.

lived for six years in Boston, the opportunity for the average person to be a real estate entrepreneur is just almost double, maybe even triple here in Texas. It’s to the point where there’s people in where I’m from in New Jersey, in the New Yorks, right in the the Boston’s who are like, I’m gonna make my money up here, but I’m going to invest it, I’m going to have properties do this remotely in the Florida’s of the world in the Texas’s of the world. And so

On that note, I tend to think that we’re in the best place or one of the best places in the country for real estate investing.

Trevor Probandt (11:35.85)
Absolutely. you know, it’s just the, the, the pro business, the, space, right? Pure space. The, know, anything with that 30, anything with that 35 corridor to the East is, is great. Right? Like, I mean, you’ve got water, you’ve got space, like the opportunities, as long as they keep bringing jobs and they keep bringing folks from all over kingdom come, it’s going to be a good thing.

Dylan Silver (11:46.019)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (12:03.982)
Trevor, pivoting a bit here, for folks who are getting into the real estate space, there’s so many different paths. Like how many different paths have we heard about? I talked about cash for keys, wholesale, you could become a realtor, you could try to do Airbnb arbitrage. I’m seeing so many different strategies coming up. Let’s say someone’s a…

police officer, teacher, or maybe they have a different sales job. I was working for Nissan and they want to get into the real estate space. You’ve now done so many deals in Texas and build subdivisions. So from the thousand view angle looking down, what would be your advice to folks who are trying to get into the real estate space?

Trevor Probandt (12:43.286)
Man, education is key.

Learning one thing, getting good at what fits for you. Me, I love land. I’m from the middle of nowhere. I knew that I couldn’t compete against the guys in Dallas because to be honest with you, there’s just not enough inventory where I was at, where you’ve got more competition, but you also have way more inventory up there. That’s where I had to almost get into the land niche because that’s where I was at and that’s where I knew.

Understand where you’re at more importantly understand. What is your strength right? Do you have more time? Do you have more money? Do you have a great network? Do you have you know what I mean? Like maybe you went to SMU right and you got a great network of guys, right? Maybe you maybe you’re you know a C-suite person with you know, whatever oil company in Houston, right? And you’ve got all this cash and more importantly get a bunch of IRA money, right? Maybe that’s where you can be the funding side for someone who’s actively going

out there but but

being, be put in a first lane position on a great deal, right? That protects you, go from there. Maybe you’re 21 years old, you don’t have a clue, you got a burning desire to get after it, you don’t have any money, but you’re gonna have to stay up all weekend and nights and all that other stuff, right? Like I start, I did a bunch of houses back in the day, right? I remember putting up bandit signs, like I didn’t even have the money to have the printed bandit signs, right? Like I remember my wife drawing, we buy houses cash on a yellow bandit sign, right? Well, under the giant marker.

Trevor Probandt (14:16.591)
Right? Like, so yeah, for sure.

Dylan Silver (14:20.556)
I’ve been there myself too. It’s a very interesting thing, planting one of those signs in the ground. Trevor, when we talk about the different avatars of person in real estate, you mentioned IRA, you mentioned planting bandit signs, know, networking, right? For me, I spent so much on analytical type, I’ve stopped as much, I think, shifting my personality even a little bit since I got into the real estate space. I’ve seen it’s better to network fanatically.

Networking cannot be understated. It cannot possibly be understated. The connections that I’ve made through reaching out to people has made me realize that I should probably even have a systematic approach to networking. Like that’s how I got on as a podcast. was here and that’s how I continue to meet guests. And so I’m curious, do you have, you know, kind of some guidelines or an approach to staying active networking in real estate? Or what do you do to network in real estate?

Trevor Probandt (15:18.876)
man, that’s, you know, that’s where you have your podcast, right? Like I have my own podcast, you know, you have people on, you start talking to things like that. But to be more, to be honest with you, to go to the RIA meetings and to find people that are the, the opposite of you, right? Find the older gentleman or the older gal there. If you’re a young buck, right? If you’re an older gentleman or an older gal, find the young buck that’s chasing deals down, right? Don’t just because you’re young, like let’s just say you’re brand new into this or, know, whatever it is and you’re,

you and your best buddy want to get into real estate. I’ve seen that happen so many times. Hey, let’s start an LLC. We’ll both be 50-50, but you’re only like, neither one of you have any money. You’re the blind leading the blind, right? And so like, don’t do that shit. Don’t do that.

Figure out, there’s so much on YouTube, right? Whether you’re wholesaling, whatever that is, but like understand everything that you do is sales. Understand that everything that you’re going to do, like, and not to be negative about it, but like.

No one cares about what you want. They care about what they want. Right. And if you can’t provide that value to them, they’re not going to really like, know what I’m saying? Like it’s not a beneficial kind of thing and don’t take it to heart. Like don’t don’t get downtrodden about it, but like understand like, Hey, you know, this guy is going to this way. And if I can’t provide any value to him, then I’m just kind of wasting my time. And more importantly, I’m wasting his or her time. Right. And so, but the networking

You just gotta let people know what you’re doing, but more importantly, get a deal on the hook, right? Whether that’s a land deal, whether that’s a house deal, whether that’s apartment deal, what have I either. But to be honest with you, don’t try to go so big so fast. Find the base hit, right? Don’t try to go wholesale an apartment building, right? Like you have no idea what you’re doing. Don’t try to do that stuff, right? If it’s a duplex or a quad or whatever, that’s one thing. But don’t try to, don’t try to…

Dylan Silver (17:13.656)
Yeah, I agree.

Trevor Probandt (17:22.098)
Yeah, don’t waste your time chasing these giant deals here and there, Like, come on. Do little flip. Do a, you know, whether that’s a creative deal with the owner financing, whatever that is. If you’re a Pace Morby fan or whatever, know, whomever your guy or gal is, right? Go all in, spend a year saying, am going to learn this. But more importantly, find someone or find a way to keep yourself accountable, right? Because the…

Bad thing is, is you’re gonna get in this loop where all you wanna do is, is…

Read and learn and learn that learning the jargon. I remember the same damn way, right? You want to learn all the jargon you want to be known like, know all this stuff It’s funny because like especially in social media and Facebook and everything else. Everyone’s like, well, that’s not that’s not the 2 % rule or this is Bad this or whatever and they’ve never done a deal but they but they they go to bigger pockets they go to Facebook and you know what I mean like go get out there run into people meaning have belly-to-belly conversations with

Dylan Silver (18:17.858)
See you everybody.

Trevor Probandt (18:25.946)
property owners, right? Whatever that is.

You figure it out, find a way to do something, right? Even, shit, even if it means getting a damn real estate license, if you’re willing to talk to people and things like that, and that way you can get referral fees, right? There’s a million different ways of getting paid on this stuff. Or, more importantly, find someone that’s a stud in what you’re doing and find a way to provide value to them. When they tell you what to do, go do it and then come back with it and then say, what’s next? You have no idea how many people I talk to and I’ll tell them exactly what to go do.

and never hear from them ever again.

Dylan Silver (19:03.298)
never hear from them. think that’s the thing is people I’ve seen this a lot in real estate. They’re afraid to kind of give away the game. But then at the same point in time, if they gave away all the game, the people that they gave it away to it many times they’re not going to execute on it. Right. So execution takes a lot of effort. It takes your energy. It takes your focus. It takes your time away from other things. So

For someone to want to be in real estate, for someone to then execute on it and for them to have any longevity is a really impressive thing. And I just think, you I want as many people, that’s what I’m passionate about. I want as many people to be able to partake in this as possible. And if you’re like living in Texas, like realize, you know, we have an awesome opportunity that we have to take advantage of. We have the dawn of information and we have the best real estate market in the country, arguably, for single family homes. It’s just an awesome thing to be out here.

time. Trevor, we are coming up on time over here. Where can folks go to get a hold of you?

Trevor Probandt (20:01.816)
Yeah, man. New websites coming out of Go West lands, big brokerage that we’re working on. My whole goal for the last five or six years is to be as vertically integrated in the land space as possible. And so that’s kind of where we’re at, right? We do listings, we do investments, we buy, we sell, we trade, we add value, we entitle, we do a little bit of everything. And now all these moving parts are kind of like coming together literally this week.

And so that’s kind of where we’re at on that. I’ve also got a podcast that’s called Land Investing the Dirt Road to Wealth. And then if you’re real serious about it, can shoot me a text at area code 940-736-8797.

Dylan Silver (20:51.32)
Trevor, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.

Trevor Probandt (20:54.966)
Yes sir, appreciate you.