How He's Using Land to Pay Off a $1M House
Derek Bourgeois, a land investing coach, discusses his journey from house flipping and bartending to building a successful land investing business. He shares insights on how the land investing landscape has evolved, the importance of focusing on details like county selection and marketing, and reveals his current 'million dollar survey hack' where he's buying a $1M property with plans to subdivide and sell portions of land to pay off the mortgage entirely.
Summary
Derek Bourgeois, a coach for Land Investing Online, shares his origin story of getting into land investing after relocating from Seattle to Nashville during COVID. After failed attempts at house flipping (earning only $30K over nine months) and real estate agenting (which took him away from family on weekends), he discovered land investing through the Land Investing Online bootcamp. He started bartending nights to fund his early business, sent out four county mailers in 2022, and netted $57,000 from three deals — providing his proof of concept.
Derek describes the evolution of the land investing space using a 'funnel' metaphor. He argues that early entrants could succeed with basic strategies and high-volume mailers, but as more investors enter the market, success increasingly depends on mastering details: nuanced county selection, understanding metrics like absorption rate vs. sell-through rate, crafting personalized marketing letters, and identifying niche strategies like subdivide plays. He credits tools like Land Portal with enabling more sophisticated data-driven decision-making.
The centerpiece of the conversation is Derek's 'million dollar survey hack' — a deal he found live at a conference by searching Zillow in his own county. He identified a $1.3M listed property (a home with three livable structures on 40 acres) and negotiated it down to $1M with $200K down. The key insight is that appraisers only value a home on up to five acres, meaning the remaining acreage is drastically undervalued in the purchase price. At $25K per acre, Derek is buying land that could sell for $50-150K per acre when subdivided. His plan is to subdivide roughly 12 acres, sell it for ~$600K, and use those proceeds to pay off most of the $800K mortgage — ultimately keeping 20-25 acres with a paid-off home.
Derek also discusses the broader trajectory of his business and coaching practice. He continues running standard land flips via mailers while increasingly pursuing larger subdivide deals. He's considering expanding into deal funding for other land investors and launching a disposition/social media marketing service specifically for land investors. He emphasizes that the core reason land investing works — people facing hardship, divorce, tax delinquency, or inheritance situations — is unlikely to change, even as tactics and tools evolve.
On the topic of AI, Derek takes a measured view, treating it as a productivity tool rather than a disruptive threat, and notes that overly AI-generated marketing copy may already be losing effectiveness with savvier audiences. He closes with coaching advice for new investors: treat early setbacks as learning opportunities, focus on improving small details rather than abandoning the strategy, and understand that the first deal typically unlocks a cascade of subsequent deals.
About this episode
<p><strong>Want to quit your job and build a real land investing business?</strong></p><p><strong>👉</strong><a href="https://landportal.com/subscriptions?a_aid=LandInvestingOnline&a_bid=9e9b000b" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Land Portal</strong></a> gives you access to the fastest-growing land software <em>plus</em> <a href="https://landportal.com/subscriptions?a_aid=LandInvestingOnline&a_bid=9e9b000b" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Land Portal University</strong></a>, where we walk you step-by-step through getting your first land deal.</p><p>🎯 Looking for <strong>1-on-1 Land Flipping or Subdividing coaching</strong>? Schedule a <a href="https://landinvestingonline.com/pages/consultation" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>FREE strategy call</strong></a> here.</p><p>================================</p><p>In this episode, Darrick returns to the podcast to share how to build a thriving land investing business in 2026 and reveals a creative strategy that could turn a $1 million property into a free homestead. Darrick breaks down new tactics, county selection, survey hacks, subdivides, and why the small details separate struggling investors from those consistently closing deals. </p><p><br /></p><p>If you're looking to scale your land business and uncover hidden opportunities, this episode is a must-watch! </p><p><br /></p><p>================================</p><p>SOCIAL</p><p><strong>Ron's Instagram </strong>📸:<a href="https://www.instagram.com/ronapke/" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> <strong>https://www.instagram.com/ronapke/</strong></a></p><p><strong>Dan's Instagram </strong>📸:<a href="https://www.instagram.com/danielapke/?hl=en" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> <strong>https://www.instagram.com/danielapke/</strong></a></p><p><a href="https://www.instagram.com/danielapke/?hl=en" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"></a></p><p>================================</p><p>TIMESTAMPS: </p><p>00:00 – Intro</p><p>00:46 – Darrick's land journey</p><p>04:33 – Side hustle to full-time business</p><p>09:23 – Dialing in the details</p><p>13:01 – Coaching through experience</p><p>15:37 – $1 Million house subdivide</p><p>22:13 – Greater potential of land</p><p>28:22 – The future of land investing</p><p>33:47 – Getting the 1st deal</p><p>41:26 – Outro </p>
Key Insights
- Derek argues that the land investing market has matured into a 'funnel' where early entrants succeeded with basic volume-based strategies, but sustained success now requires mastering granular details like nuanced county selection, custom marketing copy, and niche deal types.
- Derek contends that appraisers systematically undervalue excess acreage on residential properties by only appraising a home on up to five acres, creating an exploitable gap where investors can purchase acreage at a fraction of its subdivided market value.
- Derek claims he found his million-dollar survey hack deal live at a conference by searching Zillow in his own county for about five minutes, illustrating that high-value opportunities can exist in familiar local markets that investors overlook.
- Derek argues that the fundamental reason land investing works — people facing hardship, divorce, estate situations, and tax delinquency — is structurally permanent and will not be disrupted by increased competition or technology.
- Derek observes that AI-generated marketing copy is already losing effectiveness, citing a personal test where an AI-written Facebook Marketplace listing got no responses while a manually written one sold the item the same day.
- Derek claims that absorption rate is a critically underutilized metric in county selection, noting that virtually none of his coaching clients understand the difference between absorption rate and sell-through rate when they start working with him.
- Derek argues that in land investing coaching, a deal falling out of contract due to title issues or failed inspections should be treated as a meaningful win because the skills and pipeline built around it reliably produce subsequent closed deals.
- Derek contends that successful land investors typically evolve their businesses in one of two directions over time: moving into funding other investors' deals or moving toward a development-oriented model involving subdivisions and infrastructure improvements.
Topics
Transcript
All right, everybody, welcome back to the Real Estate Investing Podcast. Super pumped to have Derek Bourgeois on with me today. Derek is one of our coaches for Land Investing Online, really big land investor himself. Derek, welcome back. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Always a pleasure to be here. Yeah, I'm excited. It's been a while since you've been on, I feel like. And what I wanted to do today is more so a formal interview of you, what's going on in your land business. So just catch us up to speed right now. Maybe give a short background, Derek, of you getting started in this on in your land business. So just catch us up to speed right…
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