Buying Cheap Land on the MLS and Flipping it for Big Profits (EASY)

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In this episode of The Real Estate Investing Podcast, Daniel and Ron Apke dive into the topic of buying land on the MLS, exploring how investors can find profitable deals on platforms like Zillow and Realtor.com.

While off-market deals remain their bread and butter, the brothers break down the potential of listed properties, explaining that even though MLS properties typically won’t be available for 40% of market value, there are opportunities for savvy investors to secure profitable deals.

They explore strategies for identifying poorly marketed properties, dealing with unresponsive realtors, and using speed as a competitive advantage in negotiations. They also highlight how long-standing listings with poor descriptions and bad pictures can signal undervalued land with potential for improvement.

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Dan: Hey everyone. Welcome back to the real estate investing podcast. Today’s topic we’re talking about buying land on the MLS. I’m your host Daniel Apke joined again by my brother and business partner, Ron Apke. And we wanted to dive in this topic one, because we’ve seen it done multiple times. Um, two, we’ve looked at opportunities on the MLS as well.

This episode is going to be about. Buying land that’s listed on Zillow on realtor. com. It’s on the MLS and there’s certain things in criteria to look for that we’ll get into later in, but it’s about finding ways to make money and profit off of listed properties. Cause typically we look at unlisted run.

Ron: Yeah. I mean, our bread and butter is sending mail, sending text, cold calling to get. Sellers off market, essentially, but there are people out there who are very successfully buying land on the MLS and we’ll talk about different strategies for it. Are you going to be able to buy land on the MLS for 40 percent of market value?

Probably not like we do when we’re buying off the market, but there are different strategies when you can make a good amount of money and we can talk about expired listings, all these different things MLS.

Dan: Yeah, and you can, um, get more granular. And look at, because all of a sudden, if you’re looking at the MLS, you can get a little bit more granular with what you’re looking at, because what’s the MLS provide pictures, descriptions, things like that.

So you can get really granular with what you’re sending because you have that information to your forefront and we’re going to get into all of that. And then there’s different projects. Um, and then we’re going to talk about. Not only other projects that you can do and how to make money on this, but also the idea that buying on the MLS doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re buying at a hundred percent.

And that’s kind of where I want to start buying on the MLS. You don’t need to buy it at a hundred percent. So let’s talk about a hundred percent of market value referring to. So let’s talk about. Motivation and why someone who has their property list on the MLS would want to sell to you for cheaper.

Ron: Speed I think that’s one thing. Yeah, I think a lot of when people, investors are trying to buy properties on MLS, whether it’s land or not land, like one of their biggest sales points typically is speed, like how fast they’re familiar with these type of deals, all these different things. They understand what it’s like to buy whatever the asset is in this, uh, And since we’re obviously talking about land, but I think speed is a sales thing, and it’s also difficult to sell land.

So maybe the seller is listed with a realtor. That’s bad. And that’s where you have an upper leg. When you’re looking at the MLS is you understand what a property is supposed to be look like when it’s listed. There aren’t that many buyers for land. So if they’re listed incorrectly, they’re listed poorly.

They’re realtors not responding. Um, That can create a sense of lack of interest from buyers and reality. It might just be poor marketing, poor realtor.

Dan: That’s the thing. So when you’re looking at these, uh, one of the key things you can look at is the one, how long it’s been on sitting saves views. You can also look at the marketing, the pictures, the description, things like that.

If those are poor, it’s going to reach one. I mean, if it’s. Not getting views. And it’s going to reach, you know, 20 percent of the people it should. And there’s people in our community. One, we had on here, Landon and Landon’s another coach at land investing online, but there’s people that, you know, have naturally run into that because their offers get sent out to mail or because their offers get sent out through mail to people that are already listed.

So they call back, they say, Hey, my property is listed. Are you interested in buying? You can submit an offer, whatever. And then the conversation start there. And then there’s people like Landon who have gone out and actually targeted them successfully as well.

Ron: Yeah. And it’s, there’s definitely different ways to do it.

And you talked about poor pictures. You talked about, uh, old listing, lack of saves. That’s not even taken into account. Are these realtors actually answering the phone? Um, because a lot of times. And that’s what when you are reaching out these people, like you need to work to get in touch with some of these realtors.

And if you have to work to get in touch, a lot of times you can get it cheaper because they’re not doing their job. They’re not answering the phone, whatever it is. Typically, those are associated bad listings, bad descriptions, long time on the market, uh, is typically associated with a realtor that might not be very responsive.

And that’s when you can get really, really good deals.

Dan: Yeah, absolutely. And then, you know what? Typically, what? Yeah. What are we looking for when we’re doing that? Like if you’re just buying, cause they’re not going to, you’re not going to buy it at 40%. Yeah. Might be 70, 80 percent quick cash off or whatever.

It’s been sitting. Sometimes you can get it cheaper for sure. I’ve seen people get at 50 percent of what it’s worth. Cause the people I have been sitting for six months, not sold it barely any interest. They’re like, Oh, I want to sell this land. They get it. Yeah. It’s defected land, whatever it is. And that can happen too.

But typically we’re looking for some sort of improvements.

Ron: Yeah, for sure. And. How we look at it is or what I’ll do when I’m doing this and it’s not something we do regularly, but I’ll go on the MLS and just look like I’m looking for the subdivide places the most common. I think where you can find properties with good road frontage, you can look into them and see the potential.

And if you get a property for 70 percent of market value, 75 percent of market value, even when. And it’s got subdivide potential. You can double your money and that’s how you can double your money on the MLS is having a value add, whether it’s subdivide or develop, but subdivide is going to be the quickest start to finished.

Dan: I agree. And if, and that’s the thing where the pictures come in handy, because then you can look and you can see the road front, just copy that address or APN, go to the land portal, see how much road frontage map it out on the land portal. com with all that. Um, can’t even skip trace them right on the land portal for free.

One click skip trace, call them up and see if you can gauge their interest. Cause then all of a sudden you have the. And you can kind of talk about that, but then you have to start looking at the future value of what the property is going to look like after, or what financially, what it’s going to look like after you sell off all five parcels or sell off all 10 parcels.

And then you work backwards and you see your profit potential, how much it’s going to cost you. And then you can kind of work backwards to an offer. Sometimes you can pay a hundred percent. No problem. You don’t need to, if it’s been sitting, I would highly recommend not submitting an offer. That’s not, that’s a hundred percent.

Um, probably closer to 80 is what I would do. But if there’s margin there, then you can, you know, you can buy properties. People don’t have it. Um, people think of it wrong. You can buy properties based on what you can get out of it. So that can go over market value. A lot of times, do you need to go over market value?

A lot of times? No, but in certain markets, when you know, the land’s appreciating or the. Uh, houses, for example, are appreciating. So crazy. Sometimes you have to go above market just because you know, when you close, think of like 2020, 2021 over market value all the time was a thing. Um, so, but you can still make profit.

If you’re above market value, you have the right improvement play.

Ron: Yeah, for sure. I, Without a doubt, like there’s a lot of deals out there to be had you also like one of the other sales things we didn’t talk about is you’re not bringing in a realtor. Typically, you’re not bringing in a realtor. So that’s another sales thing that you can use with the other realtor.

Like they’re going to have less closing costs. I know there’s a lot of different right new rules and stuff with realtors and commissions and everything with that. Um, but yeah, I think Looking for the improvement plays there are people it might make sense to them to buy for 75, 000 and sell for 100, 000 Like you can probably find those deals all day long Um on the mos where you have those kind of numbers 75 And if it makes sense to you your life your business how much money you have in the bank If you have a lot of capital, uh, you can definitely find land to buy at 75 market value pretty consistently

Dan: Yeah, and get do your due diligence while you’re offering like make sure it’s not wet go on the land portal Like I said, look at the fema look at the flood zone the slope make sure it makes sense You Because we’re getting so granular when you start to do that, their motivation is so high to sell it.

You think of the motivation of an average lead that’s not on the market versus one listed, one listed is signed to sell. They’re ready to go. They might be signed to sell at a hundred, you know, and you, you can’t go up there, but they’re signed to sell their property motivations at all time high. And that’s what I want to do for people at the land portal run is, um, get, soon we’ll have.

You know, for sale listings on there. So then that way you can literally click, okay, I want a thousand feet of road frontage on the LAN portal. You can target road frontage specific properties. You know, maybe you want a thousand feet of road frontage. And I want it on the market listing active. Bing pops through in this County, 28 results.

You have 28 properties on the market that you can subdivide. Talk about that.

Ron: Yeah, that’s powerful for sure. Where you can actually see what the properties are. It’s hugely valuable in that in terms of when you’re looking at the MLS, sometimes a lot of times, like the, uh, whatever it is, the dot or the, uh, the marker for where the property is, is incorrect.

So that definitely can be very valuable. Um, But yeah, I think Who does this fit for Dan, as far as, is it just something everyone should be doing? Like if they want to do it in their area, a couple of counties removed, like it doesn’t take more than an hour a week. Like you just take a look. Okay. I’m focused on this area.

This area is easy to subdivide. Let’s just look on the market and see what’s going on.

Dan: Yeah, but I’m, I want to go back a little bit because I wasn’t referring to the dot and lining it up with the property as much as I was the ability to filter based on road frontage. For a subdivide. Oh, I see what you’re saying.

Yeah. You’re filtering by a thousand feet and it’s active. Mm. And then all of a sudden your search criteria gets really narrowed based on subdivides. You can do a lot of other things too. You can do that for the whole country at once. You can do that for the whole country at once. You could do that, uh, listing expired.

I’ll have that for you guys. Things like that you can get really granular with doing, because you have a thousand feet of 2000 feet, you can do whatever number you guys want. A thousand feet of road frontage between 20 to infinite amount of roads, so 20 to a thousand, uh, acres and. Or 20 to a hundred.

Let’s just say for this example, and the listing status is active and it’s been on the MLS over five months. Think of that less compared to just going and scrolling on Zillow and looking individually. You just get it all in one. That makes sense. That’s what my goal was there. I like that. So going back to your question, you’re asking who this is for.

Yeah. Um, people in this business make good money with not that much time. So I think it’s for anyone just looking for more leads. These leads are in front of you attack them. You know what I mean? There’s no willing, less spending money. These are generally, like, generally free leads. You have land that’s sitting there, you know, you might as well call him, have a conversation, see if he can buy it under market value.

That’s what Landon did with his free time. He just started calling people. I think he pulled a list. I can’t remember how he did it exactly, but he got started looking through Zillow, had a VA mark, certain properties, maybe started calling them.

Ron: Yeah. You don’t have to force it for sure. But if you look at once a week or something like that, and I don’t know, uh, an area you’ll find deals, like there’s no doubt, like I’ve done it and I’ve probably, Subdivide deals.

Yes. Subdivide deals and looking for that kind of stuff. And it’s, it’s not overly difficult. And like you said, they’re free leads. They’re just extra potential leads. You, you understand as a land investor, how to evaluate them. You understand how to do all this, how you’re going to make money on the back end.

Um, just don’t be, I don’t think shoot your number that makes sense to the realtor, whoever’s trying to list it.

Dan: Yeah. And you have on market leads and you have off market leads. Yes. Right? The two things I really like, uh, one are generally, like you said, we’re targeting off market. That’s almost all we do.

So we can expand the inventory of who we approach now and make it on market and our inventory goes up. Competition is low. There’s not a lot of land investors out there going for on market deals. I’ll tell you that right now. They’re very, very little amount. So competition is going to be lower and they’re going to be highly motivated as well.

And then another thing I like. Um, that’s besides this fact is we’re looking to expand inventory and how much land we can buy in the U S you talk about survey Hacking too. You know what I mean? That’s not doesn’t really go with this, but you just talk about growing your inventory from what it is now Exponentially and you look at these three things start looking at on market deals start looking at survey hacking survey hacking you can buy Uh, with houses on it, and you can also buy part of someone’s thousand acres and buy ten acres of it because they’re going to be more willing to, or you can buy someone sitting on 20, 20, acres with a house by 10 of it, 20 of it.

Um, and, and I think the reason I’m bringing this up is because there’s so many ways. This is land investing and there’s so many ways to make money in land investing and you look at the small population of inventory that everyone’s going after and it’s a lot of inventory in land. It’s not small, but you look at it in the competition getting higher and higher always because it’s so profitable.

People are coming in. You got to start looking at different niches. This is one of them. It’s expanding your inventory. There’s no competition in survey hacking. I can guarantee you one thing. If you, if you send a text or, uh, let’s just say you send a text to someone who owns 40 acres with a house on it and you say, I want to buy part of your land.

I would bet anyone that’s listening at this time. 1000 that that person has never gotten a text like that before. Same thing with on the market. I wouldn’t bet 1000 but I bet 20.

Ron: Yeah, you know, on the market definitely would be for survey hacking. I think on the market would be much more difficult just because the realtor without the realtor in there.

I think it could be simpler, but I’m-

Dan: The realtor doesn’t make it difficult, but you’re also looking for improvement play so you can pay more.

Ron: For sure. And I think you can make it make sense for both people. But then the realtor is to sell. Two properties for them to make as much money. Um, but yeah, 100%.

Yeah, you do text for survey hacking all this. I know we’re getting off topic in terms of MLS.

Dan: You make this a good transaction. I’ll use you on this. I’m going to subdivide this up and I’ll use you on the other side. Probably illegal but yeah.

Ron: Yeah, that’s definitely something. For them to do it. Yeah. But I, there’s so many different ways.

I think if just expanding your leads, like Dan said, is so important and like being able to take potential leads and landed as someone who’s sending 50, 000 texts per month, sending ridiculous over 10, 000 pieces of mail per month. And he’s still doing that other thing. So it’s, it’s just like a, I think it’s just a mentality going on here.

Yeah. We need to get him here.

Dan: A lot of updates since when was that? If you guys haven’t listened, Landon was on our podcast.

Ron: Probably a few months ago. Yeah. Maybe early.

Dan: Longer than that. I was here for a few months. It was way before that.

Ron: Maybe April or so because he was planning on quitting in July and then he quit much, much earlier than what his March or April probably.

Dan: So there’s the episode there. Landon is, uh, someone who was able to quit his job within what, how many months after doing starting? Six, seven, maybe. And he, he’s phenomenal for, uh, keeping an open mind and attacking different methods that people aren’t looking at while staying focused and knowing what his specialty is, but also just looking and making things happen.

And. Doing things with leads. No one else is doing.

Ron: Yeah. I mean, that’s, that’s the name of the game. I think at the end of the day, like taking what people teach you, what we teach you, whatever it is, and then kind of implementing and adjusting and trying some new things with, we always talk about trying new things with a percentage of your business.

I think it’s important to grow. And that’s one of the coolest thing about. Where we’ve come two years ago, 18 months ago to where we are now, like having these different conversations about text, about survey hacking, about subdividing, about all these different things that we weren’t really sold on. Or maybe we just didn’t need to do it two years ago.

Um, like how land investing is involved evolving right now. Is making making you learn new things for sure. And I think it’s going to make the top line investors way more money overall.

Dan: Yeah. And the one that the one niche that hasn’t really grown on me is seller financing, I think. And I think it’s because I see thousands of people that come in our community.

I see what they want and they want freedom. And so they’re financing doesn’t necessarily provide that immediate freedom of what 25, 000 flip can do. And that’s why I haven’t turned on that. But yeah, survey hacking and you see the discord, people talk about survey hacking. Everyone’s doing it. They’re asking for the lingo.

I’m like, I don’t know how to write this contract up. I tagged you. Um, but there’s just so many different ways to make money in this business. And it’s exciting guys. If you’re not looking, if you guys have extra time, which most of you do, And you’re not looking at deals on the MLS. I highly, highly suggest just test it out.

See what happens. The worst thing, you’re going to have someone semi interested because they’re not going to be not interested because they’re, they’re listed. That’s a motivated seller and no one else is going at them. They’ve been sitting for four months. Their marketing sucks, all this different stuff.

Try it out. Worst that happens is you have a hot lead that maybe you convert. Maybe you don’t.

Ron: It’s definitely worth the time.

Dan: 100 thousand deals. You’re talking about subdivides. Like, what are you going to go after 20, 30, 40 acres and buy it for 80 percent of market value, a hundred thousand dollars.

Um, say you buy it for 85, 85 percent of market value, buy it for 85, 000. It’s worth a hundred. You subdivide it up and it’s worth one 90. You sell like these are six figure deals. Spend time on your leads.

Ron: Yeah, I a hundred percent agree. Anything else? No, I think we’re good to go. Other than that, guys, if you haven’t already hit the subscribe button below, hit the like button for this video.

If you’re watching on Spotify or listening on Apple, share this with a friend, putting your Instagram story. Thanks so much. We’ll see you next time.

Dan: Thanks for joining guys.

As always, thank you for joining. Please do us a huge favor and like, and subscribe our YouTube channel and share this with a friend.

It really means the world to Ron and I, but more importantly, it could help change the life of someone else. Thanks for joining and we’ll see you next episode.

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