The Wisconsin Investor
Each week, we bring you interviews with some of Wisconsin's top real estate investors who share their tips, tricks, and strategies that you can implement right away. This show is dedicated to helping Wisconsin real estate investors elevate their game. Along with interviews, I'll also dive into hot topics in solo episodes and feature experts from various real estate sectors across Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin Investor
Dylan Rusch on Land Investing: The Untapped Gold Mine Most Investors Ignore
From House Hacks to Land Flips: Dylan Rusch’s Strategy for Scalable Real Estate Wealth
Dylan Rusch went from rookie house hacker to full-time land investor in just a few years — and in this episode, he breaks down the exact blueprint he followed to do it.
He started by buying duplexes with just 5% down and converting them into short-term rentals. One unit that used to bring in $500/month? After Dylan’s strategy, it earned over $5,100 in its first month as an Airbnb. Using HELOCs before moving out, he created a rinse-and-repeat system that outperformed traditional rentals and gave him serious momentum.
But the real pivot came when Dylan discovered land investing — a strategy that’s lower maintenance, scalable, and perfect for anyone looking to build wealth without tenants, toilets, or turnover. In this episode, he shares:
- His "House Hack Burster" method that made duplexes cash machines
- Why he transitioned to land for more flexibility and time freedom
- How he uses tools like Land ID and Land Portal to analyze properties
- The power of minor subdivides to boost value without heavy regulation
- How he markets land before he even closes using Facebook and builder networks
- The way he gives private money lenders 10% returns — sometimes in under 3 weeks
- Why a $6K–$10K marketing budget is more than worth it
If you’re looking for passive income, off-market land deals, or want to partner with Dylan, this episode delivers real strategies, not just theory.
🧠 Learn how to analyze land, structure profitable flips, and create mailbox money with less hassle.
👉 To get on our Wisconsin buyers list and receive off-market properties with video walkthroughs and repair estimates, visit WisconsinDiscountProperties.com
📲 Connect with Dylan on Instagram or Facebook: @drusch5
Hey everybody, we are back on another episode of the Wisconsin Investor and again I have another amazing guest for you guys today, and we're going to get into a topic, which I'll introduce here in a minute, that we haven't discussed yet on any of the episodes so far. So I'm super excited for today's episode because I selfishly do these a lot of times, because I get to learn from other amazing people, and today is going to be no exception. But before I do that, I want to talk about our sponsor Again, as I do every episode Wisconsin Discount Properties. If you are out there and you are looking for deals and you're not on our buyers list yet, you need to go out there right now. Go to wisconsindiscountpropertiescom, pop your information in and you're going to get added to our buyers list. We have walkthrough videos. We try to get quotes on big ticket items for you, so we try to make it as easy as possible for you to be looking at properties and making offers. I said when I started doing this process I wanted it as easy as you could sit on the can, pull up the little folder that we send out to you and be able to evaluate a deal before you're done and put an offer in right from the can. So get off social media, get to the website, get your information in there and start looking at deals With that being said, today I want to introduce Mr Dylan Roosh.
Speaker 1:Did I say that right, dylan, dylan Roosh? Yep, that's correct, beautiful, beautiful. So I got introduced to Dylan from a mutual friend that I met through real estate. So I've had Mitch and Katie Elyon in the past. One of the early episodes they were partnered with a gentleman named Luke, who they did a motel up in Fish Creek where they converted an old motel model to sort of a new, fresh motel model of you know being virtual and doing that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1:And I've gotten to know those guys. We talk, we run into each other all the time up here when they're in town and we talk shop. And I was talking to Luke one day and he said dude, you got to meet my buddy Dylan. He's doing all this cool stuff in the land space. So, as I said, we haven't had anybody on here before doing the land thing. Dylan and I have been going back and forth trying to figure out a time to get him on here. He was sick for a while and then my schedule wasn't working out, and so I'm so excited to have you on here today, dylan. Dylan, give us a little background on you and yourself and how you got into this crazy real estate game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, thanks, corey, so much for having me. It's really cool to know that you have a podcast. That's a platform for Wisconsin investors like us, so very cool to see and got. To be honest, it's really surreal to be on a podcast like this because four years ago I didn't own any real estate, didn't know how to renovate a house, didn't really know what a title company does and, if I'm being honest, I still don't really know what a title company does.
Speaker 2:But now fast forward to today. I've been on a few land-specific podcasts presented at my local RIA. So it's all pretty surreal just knowing how far you can come in just a few years. And they say that you can overestimate what you can do in one year and kind of underestimate what you can do in four or five years. And really my journey is very much in line with that. But, yeah, got into real estate. It started with paying off debt, doing the Dave Ramsey method, and then that transitioned to financial independence. So my wife and I, after we paid off our private student loans, we were looking to invest as much as we can, hopefully try to retire when we're I don't know 45, 50 years old, by maximizing retirement accounts and then, as your knowledge within finances goes, I learned that, okay, if I want to exit the job earlier, you can do that through real estate. So read books like Rich Dad, poor Dad, all that good stuff.
Speaker 2:Our journey really started, my wife and I, in 2021, late 21. We house hacked our first duplex in Port Washington, wisconsin so not far from Lake Michigan Did a renovation and then we turned the other unit into an Airbnb, so went the short-term rental route I think the tenant previously was paying like $500 a month. And then our first month as an STR was in July, so it's our biggest month. But we brought in I think $5,100 in that first month and at that point we were sold. Not every month is like that, certainly. And then we house hacked our next place in downtown Port Washington, lived there for 12 months it was a single family home moved out, so got 5% down just all the benefits of owner-occupied financing. So, yeah, so we have four STRs and now I'm in the land space too, but that was kind of our journey into real estate and then getting connected with guys like Luke and Mitch, who are awesome people and great investors too, so that's awesome.
Speaker 2:My network as well.
Speaker 1:Man like so think about that somebody wearing and tearing your property long-term and you turned it into basically one month-ish of income from somebody or a few different people coming in and out of there. Man, that is awesome. I have not heard of anybody house hacking into a short-term rental on the other unit. That's a great idea and obviously you probably had a little bit more expense with that because you have to furnish it right. So maybe that's a limiting factor for a lot of people who are house hacking. They typically are doing it because they don't have a lot of capital to put down on the property in the first place.
Speaker 2:But man that is an awesome idea.
Speaker 1:Do you remember what the numbers would look like for the rest of the year, because you said you had the best month there. Do you remember what?
Speaker 2:you ended up at, not sure from July through the end of the year. I know that with that duplex we've since moved out. Obviously we net about $2,500 to $3,000 every single and we were house hacking. So definitely some sacrifice there and I like to call it like a house hack burster. So we house hacked, which is super beneficial, and then we did the rehab, we refinanced and we rented out as an STR and then before we moved out of our unit we did a HELOC on the properties and use that to roll into our next property. So as optimized as you can get and it just worked out really well.
Speaker 1:I feel like you know. They say, like one of the things about Native Americans when they kill an animal, they eat every piece of the, every piece of the animal, every piece of it. Like that's what you did right there. That's called the Native American real estate strategy, right there, yeah.
Speaker 2:We should make t-shirts. I think that's right.
Speaker 1:Bigger pogs ain't got nothing on us after we copyright this right. Yeah, oh, that's amazing dude, that's an awesome strategy. So then, when you moved out, you got to keep the HELOC right Because it was already in place. So the bank isn't coming back after you trying to close that thing, right?
Speaker 2:Exactly, yeah, and I heard that it was tough to get HELOCs on rental property, so that's why I just did it before I moved out and then rolled that into the down payment for for the house man.
Speaker 1:Well, I think we could probably wrap right here, dylan, cause I'm like I want to go send this out to a bunch of people. I know that our house hacking right now would be like you guys got to listen to this. This clip for Dylan. This is so good, that's so, and we're not even talking land yet. We didn't even get you got the property, you got the house hacks going. How did this transition into land happen? Because the natural progression would be just keep stacking. Those STRs is working well and the rentals are working well and the house hacks working well. Like what had you transition over and to start getting into land?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that was the plan is to continue stacking rental properties, whether it's STRs, long-term rentals but I just knew that I ran into a lack of capital. It was hard to continue house hacking year after year. Eventually that's going to wear on your family. So I just needed something that was a little bit more scalable. So we had two kids at the time. I was working a demanding corporate job, so I just knew that I had limited time from a renovation standpoint.
Speaker 2:I can't go and fix houses and I remember I had to clean one of our units for some reason Maybe our cleaner couldn't make it and I heard Ron Apke on the Action Academy podcast and he talked about land investing.
Speaker 2:I had never heard about it before, but he said that you can do it full remote. If you're good with spreadsheets, if you're good being on the phones, you can really make it a very profitable business. So I decided to take a chance and join that land-specific mastermind and I'm also part of a five-person pod that where all we talk about is land investing and I got started in, I want to say, october of 2023. So I haven't even been into it this long or that long, and even with land, I can put my kids to bed at 7 PM even still, and then go and comp land and be in spreadsheets and look at my CRM, make phone calls if I have to, whereas, like it got tougher and tougher to go and renovate some of these houses as you grow your family and also try to ultimately grow your business too.
Speaker 1:For sure, 100%, dude. That's one thing I want to go back to. Is you talked about this, this specific land, specific, you know mastermind group or whatever it was that you're into. This is how I talk to people all the time about this. Dylan's like, get in something If you can find it specific for whatever niche you want to be in.
Speaker 1:You know there's a couple of people I know that are have really grown their short-term rental portfolio so they get in a short-term rental mastermind group and they just all they do is they share back and forth and what's great is it's in a lot of those the reason they're successful is because everybody's an open book, because you're not competition. This is so-and-so is down in Florida doing it, so-and-so is over here, so you can kind of learn the best tricks and tips. And we're in a mastermind group every quarter I go to to the meetings and it's a mix of land rentals and whatever. But they have specific rooms that they talk about wholesaling or they talk about flips or they talk about construction or whatever you're into. So you can kind of pick and choose where you want to go. But it's been so helpful for us to get around just people that are like-minded and want to achieve the same kind of thing and you can share some of your knowledge and vendors and strategies and hiccups and hurdles and all that stuff back and forth with each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. And you're probably a cheap investor like me where you don't want to spend that money on masterminds. But now that you've done it, you see the fruits of putting your money into masterminds and connections and I think the best advice that I got in terms of networking and masterminds is like you can try to learn something for two or three years, but if you join a mastermind or if you hire a coach and you can learn that in two or three months, it's worth every single penny. And even today, as I've grown my land business, I think I'm paying my one-on-one land coach, who's doing four or five mil annually. I think I'm paying him well over a thousand dollars an hour just for that one-on-one time with him every other week and it's completely transformed my business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, on one of the podcasts I think it's one that you and I were talking about before we hit record we had Marcus Kriegler on from Beck, cfo, and one of the lines that really stuck with me in that podcast. He said everything in your business it should not be an expense, it should be an ROI. And when you look at coaching, right, you, you're spending 2000 bucks a month or whatever, but the ROI that you're getting it should be, you know, multiples of that, that quote unquote expense. But you're, you're really getting a huge ROI on the coaching when you do, when you do that correctly in this business.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah, whether it's coaching or whether it's sending out marketing, it's always really important to track your numbers and know your return on ad spend. So yeah, whether it's networking marketing, sometimes you just got to spend the money to make the money certainly yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:Well. So that's amazing dude. The land says talk about comping land, because this is something I've struggled with. There's a couple of things I struggle with when we look at land. So we get land leads. We don't market specifically for land leads but sometimes county records got it listed as a single family property and we get a call from somebody who's got a piece of land and they're like I want to sell this thing and while we have TV commercials, so we get people that call us just, you know, inquiring hey, do you guys also buy land? And a lot of times we're like nah, not really Like, we kind of turn a lot of those away.
Speaker 1:And part of my struggle has been one valu in land. Right, how do you value the land, especially remotely? Two who's buying the land? You've got to have an end buyer for this stuff. Are we buying and listing an MLS, holding costs, all that kind of stuff? Talk a little bit about those two things, dylan. Start first, maybe how are you comping it? And then, two who's your end buyer? And I'm sure that's a moving target.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So how to comp land, I would say that's one of the most important pieces if you are trying to get into the land investing space. It's tough. I would say it's probably 60% science based on data and then 40% just knowing what you're doing and knowing what makes land valuable. You could have a parcel across the street that's zoned residential but the other parcel is zoned agricultural and all you can really do is farmland. That completely changes the game from a comping standpoint from a value standpoint.
Speaker 2:So zoning is super important. Things like wetlands slope being in a FEMA floodplain, whether it has access to a lake or water frontage, plays a factor into comping. So that's part of the probably 40% art that's involved. And so, yeah, comping is tough. It's one of the toughest things to do in the land space and there's even been deals that I've flipped, that I'm like I'm not sure how this is going to go and you get an all cash accepted offer in four days. And then there's been deals where I'm like, oh, this is a home run deal and it ends up sitting on the market for three or four months run deal. And it ends up sitting on the market for three or four months, which is a long time for me.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, sometimes you just don't know and you don't know how the market's going to react. And then in terms of end buyers, it kind of depends on the parcel. So I just listed one today. It's just shy of eight acre parcel in Wapaka, so it's Northern Wisconsin and to me that's either someone building a home on it or it's someone looking for a second home and a cabin property. It doesn't have water frontage by any means. However, it's an eight acre property. It's wooded, so someone could put a cabin on it and then hunt the property as well, potentially. So it kind of depends on the land as to who your end buyer is.
Speaker 1:Okay, and probably the region like you're talking about, like northern Wisconsin Wooded, you're going to get that avatar of a person and you're going to have maybe something closer to some population. That maybe is you're looking, maybe for a developer who's going to lot it off or like what's the? Is that accurate, or what's that look like typically when you're looking closer to the metros. Yeah, yeah, if you're looking closer to the metros.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, if you're closer to the metros kind of right around city limits those are great opportunities to flip to a builder or to another land developer. You take a smaller cut, kind of get that singular double, as opposed to swinging for the fences with the home run by doing the road development costs and incurring all those costs. So, yeah, it definitely depends on the region. Sometimes you can have a parcel that's more rural. That is perfect for a hobby farm, which is all the rage these days too, where people want their house on five plus acres plus an outbuilding. So, yeah, that comes with experience too in terms of knowing who your end buyer is, and it's really important to know who your end buyer is when you put together that offer on the front side.
Speaker 1:That's the same in residential real estate, too, and commercial real estate. A lot of times when I'm looking at locking a deal up, I already have a pretty good idea of who could potentially buy that property, and it may not be a specific person, but a specific type of person who's looking to buy that, or I know who's going to be the flipper I wholesale it to and who's their end buyer. Are they a family? Are they things the family's going to want? Are they going to want a tub or just a full shower? All those types of things that you can start thinking about.
Speaker 1:It's the same in the land space, which that's pretty cool. Talk about the wetlands thing. This is something else I've struggled with. When I'm looking at a parcel, I don't know if it's wetlands or not Like, how do you figure that out? Or is that something you do once you get it under contract? Then do you go and have somebody go actually tell you what's wetland and what's not wetland.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's a great, great question and due diligence is such an important piece to residential real estate like you do, Corey as well as land. So I use a software called Land ID. I think I pay like 80 bucks a month there's cheaper options there too and essentially with Land ID they are able to pull in all of the wetlands on a given property. So wetlands are, I think, delineated by the DNR, so Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. You can go on the Wisconsin DNR website and find all wetland properties and areas. That also pulls on to land ID.
Speaker 2:So when I get a lead that comes in, kind of the first thing I check is wetlands. Does it have road frontage, because you don't want a landlocked property Is it able to be subdivided, Things of that nature from a due diligence standpoint. And then even on the front end, there's another software called Land Portal that I use to pull data. And being able to pull that data has come a long ways, even since I started, where they use AI to filter out wetlands and to filter in a minimum road frontage. So that helps me save money on marketing costs by pulling the right data. So that helps too. So every lead that does come in. I would say 80% of those leads are at least good land. Not a ton of wetlands has road frontage, just leads that I could potentially do business with.
Speaker 1:So you're using Land Portal more on the front end to target who you're going to target with the marketing side of things, and you're using Land ID more so for your due diligence on. Is this a decent opportunity? Is there wetland, that kind of stuff?
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly. Yeah, there's a few different softwares out there too, but that's what I currently use, okay.
Speaker 1:Got it. Wow, that's really cool. I've always struggled with that, you know. I like I think you and I were talking maybe before we recorded and I met a guy up here in Door County that does some land development and he was kind of showing me some of these projects he's doing and these kind of things. He's talking about some of the deals that he did and I'm just like, dude, how did you know about wetlands? And he, he was telling me he just has some guy that is like approved by the dnr, that they just walk the property and he tells them this is wetland, this isn't. He flags it all off for him and then that's what he goes with. And I'm like that seems like a really complicated process.
Speaker 1:Some website, you could just go on it. It should just tell you, kind of like you can see flood zone, right. Like you just go on the website, there's the flood zone. I don't want to do that one, right, but that's interesting. What about, like let's talk about this we had a parcel that was on a river frontage, so there was some, there was some wetland area there. But my thought was like man, it's river frontage.
Speaker 1:People would want to maybe develop this and we got crickets from fires. What's been your experience? Have you had experience with some water frontage or river frontage or those types of things where maybe it is wetland but it still seems desirable, and how have you overcome some of the wetland issue?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't get a ton of like lake frontage or river frontage leads that come in, but when I do I certainly look at them because usually those are more valuable.
Speaker 2:And really I think that the DNR probably and don't quote me on this, but I think the DNR just automatically almost puts wetlands around like even a stream or a river a certain amount, just because they don't want that developed or built on. And sometimes you can do and I think this is what you were referring to earlier is a wetland delineation study. So, like any major subdivision or development project or even something near water or a river, you can pay a wetland delineator to go and delineate the wetlands and that can potentially shrink the wetlands that the DNR initially had as like mapped wetlands and then the wetland delineator kind of has the final say on what you're able to do or not. I just had one come in within the last week for a development project that I'm potentially doing and that was a nice $5,000 or $6,000 bill, but it then can open up quite a bit from a development standpoint.
Speaker 1:Yeah, talk a little bit about that one, because we were talking a little bit before we hit record on this one. This is pretty cool. What ended up coming back on this thing and what your due diligence, how you were running the numbers originally and then how this came back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes. So I have a 45-acre parcel under contract currently and um it they had two major wetlands on the parcel, so I knew I had to be creative in terms of how to develop it. And there's so much that goes into it. There's town bureaucracy, bureaucracy, bureaucracy. Maybe you can edit that.
Speaker 1:We get it. We know what you're trying to say. It's a tough word, it is.
Speaker 2:It is. Uh, there's road frontage and access points to county roads, so there's so much that goes into some of these development projects. But, long story short, I was looking to put in maybe 800 foot town road and do maybe 11 single family lots between, say, two and a half to five acre lots, so nice estate lots where people can have outbuildings and whatnot. But what that wetland delineator found was that because I'm within a half mile of city limits, I can potentially assuming everything gets approved I can fill those wetlands, develop those wetlands, put roads to those wetlands, so that opens up the entire 45 acre parcel, which would take that one from 11 single family lots to potentially 20 to 24 single family lots. Wow, it would mean more road and infrastructure costs. However, more buildings makes it a much more advantageous and desirable parcel for an end buyer, which in this case would likely be a builder.
Speaker 1:Okay, now are you the one that's going to put the roads in, or are you going to get it all approved and entitled, as we maybe would call it, and then go ahead and sell that to a developer to let them go ahead and do the roads? Or how do you currently do something like that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so still TBD on that one I closed in the next two months or so. So definitely working with local builders to see if there's a price in mind that they have or they just want to take on the infrastructure costs and then, yes, make some money on the horizontal development from a land standpoint but also make whatever they make on each house from a net profit standpoint. So I pitch that to one builder in particular. We'll see if he's interested there. I definitely do want to get into some of these development projects.
Speaker 2:I think it'd be so cool to to do this for 30 plus years and and help with the housing shortage, I guess, and make a little bit of money along the way. So it's a unique balance between, like, how much infrastructure and how much expense do you want to incur first? Like, do you take the double from a profitability standpoint or do you go for the home run and try to develop the entire thing, which involves more risk and an economic downturn can really impact you. So there's a lot of different factors there which I'm sure you've experienced with some of your projects, corey.
Speaker 1:Well, what's interesting is like I was talking to a couple of people about this before and I just had Mike Boye on here from our area who just doing new. We talked well, I don't even think we talked new construction on the podcast. This area who just doing new. We talked new. Well, I don't even think we talked new construction on the podcast. This was like after the podcast we talked. But I want to get into doing some new construction.
Speaker 1:It's just interesting to me, I don't know, like it's kind of like you. It's almost like I just want to see, not from nothing to something. Like it's kind of a cool, like that's what I love before and afters when people flip or when we flip. I love seeing like this was a tur, amazing, and now like a family's going to enjoy like a new, amazing home and all that kind of stuff. Like it's that I don't know. I don't know what it is like that little pump of adrenaline or whatever you call it, the hormones that you get from feeling like you did something good. I think the same thing in new construction, but the problem I see is like I want to go. I just want to do one. I want to see how it goes and then I'll start doing some more.
Speaker 1:But there's a lot of red. Like you're talking, I'm going to be potentially getting a loan for 500 grand, whatever it is. If I got multiples of those sitting out there and all of a sudden something happens, I'm going to be like I'm stuck holding the bag on a bunch of these new houses and to rent it and cover the bills are going to be pretty tough to be able to do that if something happens in the market. So that's kind of the scare here. I see the same thing in development. I've looked at doing some development. We've had land opportunities where we could have taken and probably ran with putting the roads in and doing all that stuff. But then I start looking at the cost of all that. I'm like, oh, I don't even know what I'm doing Now. I got a couple million dollars and stuff. I don't even know if it's going to move. So have you done any development projects to date or has everything just been flipping the land so far to this point?
Speaker 2:Yeah, mostly flips to this point.
Speaker 2:I would say, like for any listener, that the minor subdivides are way easier.
Speaker 2:So if you have a property that has a bunch of road frontage and you don't need to put in any roads and you can take a 20 acre parcel and turn it into four parcels at five acres each, that's the bread and butter.
Speaker 2:I can pay market value, even on the buy side, and then just do those minor subdivisions where you do need county approval but you don't need state approval and all that. So once you get to five parcels or more, that triggers a major subdivision in the state of Wisconsin and that's where you have to go through all the hoops of a wetland delineator and stuff like that. So there's been a few properties that I'm hoping to get under contract here soon that are, say, 10 plus acres they're zoned for what I need it for. That are, say, 10 plus acres, they're zoned for what I need it for, and then I can pay market value, do a subdivide and kind of sell at a premium and make a profit that way. And that's what I like with a residential real estate investor. You do that value add with the house and it'd be sweet to do that value add with land too.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's cool. That's a really good nugget. I did not realize that anything over four lots. Now you got to go through a much bigger process, probably a much more expensive process as well. Yeah, yeah, usually, yeah. So on something like that, you're going to go from one lot to four lots. What is the zoning requirement that you need to make sure that you have? And then what are you looking at for like rough ball costs to get that from? Like I'm going to purchase it for X, and I know this is going to vary, obviously, depending on location. But just a rough example, maybe of one that you've done in the past of like here's I bought it for this or I could buy it for this. Maybe a hypothetical event it costs this to put it in. Here's what I could sell, each one for Net profits this yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So one that I'm looking at right now it's a 13 acre parcel, I would say, as is it's probably worth about 20K an acre, so about 260K, and that's what I'm offering. On my end I have a verbal agreement with the seller. Hopefully that comes to fruition and I get that signed contract. But basically what I'd be looking to do is and I've looked at four or five acre comps and it's really pretty easy. If it's again four lots or less, all you really need is a CSM, which is a certified survey map, to take that 13-acre parcel and maybe turn that into two, sixes or three, four and a half-acre parcels. Then it's just knowing the comps, knowing your numbers, getting realtor opinions as well, to understand like, hey, this is what a four to five acre parcel would sell for, here's what a 13 acre parcel would sell for as is. But then involved with that project, I mentioned the surveyor. With the three or four lot split. That could maybe be a couple grand to get a surveyor out there.
Speaker 2:And then perk test is a big one that we haven't talked about yet too. That's a huge part of due diligence. So you want to make sure that the land is able to perk for septic, because if it doesn't, you're kind of screwed and you can't really build on the land. So, like this particular parcel, I have no worries or concerns that it would perk. But that is important too from a due diligence standpoint. So, yeah, there's surveys, perk tests. I'm even paying closing costs for as I purchase something which I'm guessing you do, corey as well A lot of times paying cash using private money lenders. So there's a lot of costs that go into some of these flips. So buy for $30K, sell for $60K. You could think, yeah, I guess that's technically $30K gross profit, but on both sides of the ledger that gets squeezed a decent amount, maybe 5k on each side at least between private money, closing costs, stuff like that. So there's a lot more costs that you need to think about in the land space, very similar to the residential space as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's so good. What? What do you typically pay in private money lenders in the land space? What is the kind of the going rate right now that you're seeing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so because land is so nuanced, it's hard to collateralize land, so I definitely put that into my terms. But I've been able to build a really strong network of private money lenders and right now I'm doing a 10% preferred return. So hopefully I'm explaining this all correctly. But say someone were to fund a land deal for $100K and it sells within, I think, three or four months, they would make $10,000. So it's a 10% hit to that or pop to them within three or four months. So it's steep and I think my average deal in 2025 that I'm looking to sell has sold in two months. So I'm marketing it really well and I'm getting these investors returns of 10% in just a couple of months.
Speaker 1:And this may all change, so don't hold this as yeah, you're going to have people beating the door down at the end of this to give you some money, I think, dylan, because that's annualized. I don't know what the math is on that, but that's a heck of a return annualized.
Speaker 2:It's crazy. It is crazy. And usually for my private lenders I've had cash offers where we close in 18 days and their private money lender is making 10% in 18 days. And again you can't guarantee this. But then I send them a text like hey, you made this much, 10% in 18 days. Here's what that is annualized. 10% in 18 days, here's what that is annualized. And then they're like oh crap, this makes a whole lot of sense and eventually, as I scale and grow the business, it'd be nice to bring that down, but it's so rewarding to work with family and friends and help them win too, because that's what it's all about. 100% man.
Speaker 1:I love that, and that's in the residential space we had Jay Conner on, who I know. You and I were talking about that as well too. I'm just raising private money and you know, that's like one of the biggest things I think when I started was I was afraid to ask people for money, and then I just shifted my mindset. I was like, wait a minute, I'm actually giving people an opportunity to let their money grow into something that is going to be much better than any options that most of these people have, and so now they can share in the success that I'm having and I can share with them, and it's kind of a fun little thing that we can do back and forth and it really is a rewarding experience that you're giving people that otherwise wouldn't have an opportunity to maybe to have their capital grow as quickly as what we can do here, in the real estate space, so I love that, yeah, a hundred percent, and if you're confident in what you're doing and you have the track record again.
Speaker 2:I've maybe been in the game for less than 2 years now, but I feel like I've been in the game for 5, 10 years, just based on experience and number of deals. And it's so cool. I've had my sister and brother-in-law have funded some deals and that helps pay for my nephew's education, so just things like that is super rewarding, and I was the same way, so my first few deals I funded myself. And as you build the track record, then it's you go on podcasts and people are interested and you start talking about what you do and posting what you do. People get interested and that helps too where I initially I was so quiet about what I was doing.
Speaker 1:And you shouldn't be. You should share the cool things that you're doing with family, friends, people online and try to inspire them that way too. 100%, and I talk about that on the podcast. He's like share this podcast If you're brand new or you're just getting in the game, or you've been in the game for a while and you've been quiet about it. Share the podcast on your social media stuff, because that tells other people like it's not, it's not like even if you don't want to help us grow. That's great. I don't, I didn't know that. Like, look, he shared a real estate podcast. That's interesting. Share it again. Another episode. Wow, he's sharing a lot of real estate stuff that I wonder. What does he do? And it creates this curiosity about what you're doing. And that's a great way to get referrals. It's a great way to get deals. It's a great way to get money. And it's free. You don't have to send out letters or be on TV commercials like we have to do.
Speaker 2:Free marketing channel so use it right.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, Absolutely. That's great man. Location-wise, Dylan, I know you mentioned a couple different spots now. So you're up in North Wisconsin. Are you going to these properties, or is a lot of this stuff just virtual from your home office there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, most of it is virtual and that's what drew me to land investing as well. So I send out a ton of whether it's direct mail, I use a land specific cold calling company as well from a marketing standpoint. So those are my two marketing channels currently. I experimented with PPC as well, but yeah, I'm really all over the state of Wisconsin with PPC as well. But yeah, I'm really all over the state of Wisconsin.
Speaker 2:I try to be in expensive areas just because that usually lends itself to more potential for developments or minor subdivides. So you just have more wiggle room in more expensive areas. So a lot of times for me that has been in southeastern Wisconsin, so Racine County, ozaukee County, Walworth County and everything all those counties in that area. But I've also had good success up north too. So in 2024, I experimented with targeting other states and whatnot.
Speaker 2:But there's so much benefit that comes from when I'm talking with the lead and being like and I'm telling them, hey, I'm from Jackson, wisconsin, and they can be like, oh, I know where that is, or oh, that's near West Bend or Germantown. So just them knowing that they're talking to someone from Wisconsin gives you just so much more trust and rapport. But yeah, in terms of boots on the ground, I get droners that go out to the property. So as soon as I get something under contract, I get my droner out there. I've worked with a number of droners and they will snap photos of the property from a due diligence standpoint, but also for a marketing standpoint, because as soon as I get it under contract, I'm listing it non-MLS to my buyer's list to different places online where I am able to list it to generate interest. And it's crazy how many deals that I have sold to the end buyer before I even close on the property. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:So are you assigning some of these, then, or are you closing and are you doing double closes on everything, or how are you typically transacting some of those that you're pre-marketing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I've assigned one. Usually I do try to go the double close route. A lot of times I'll use a transactional funder. There's some national funders out there that'll do like 1%, 2% type of thing and it's just easier to do a double close. And it's important to work with good companies, title companies, who know how to do a double close, because not all of them are created equal. So yeah, mostly I do try to do a double close.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool. Is there any reason why you would do a double close over just assigning it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have it in my contract that I'm able to assign it. But sometimes it can be a tough discussion where the A in the transaction sees what B me is making and then the end buyer can see what I bought it for, that sort of thing. And again, it's not shady, it's just flipping contracts essentially. And really you're taking land that people haven't visited in three, four years and you're getting that to an end buyer who's going to build it, who's going to use it, who's going to hunt on it. So there's definitely value in that and I feel good about it too. Because of all the marketing expenses that go into running a land business, it's not cheap either 100%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we struggle with that. One thing we did with our title company is we made sure we. We worked with a few different title companies before, but every single time we did we're like hey, we're going to sign something, you are not putting our assignment fee on the seller statement. It has nothing to do with the seller, it's not. There's no reason for them ever to see our assignment fee. They don't need to see it. And with the buyers we've had to just have very upfront conversations before we say, hey, yes, you will accept your offer. Like, hey, you're going to see what we've made on this. You cannot care if we make a dollar or a million dollars on this thing.
Speaker 1:You have to be okay with what we did. That is no bearing on your number. Don't come back to me and try to renegotiate this thing. If you do, I'll never do another deal with you again and for the most part it's been pretty smooth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I totally agree. And even when I go to sell a property, and especially when I'm listing it before closing on it, on the buy side, I'm listing it at 80, 90% of market value, so that person who's going to be the ultimate end buyer they're getting a really sweet deal that I don't even have to put on the MLS sometimes. So it's a win-win for everyone involved.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. And are you doing a lot of these, Dylan? Are you doing a lot of this due diligence before you start marketing it as well? So when you go talk to a buyer, you've already got the perk test figured out, the wetland thing, all that stuff. So are you providing some value in that way as well for the end buyer?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so I really try to package it up for the end buyer so that will be a perk test that, depending on the property, that can be part of my due diligence where I'm paying a perk test, whether that's $850, $1,000, whatever it is, because ultimately the end buyer and their realtor is going to want to see that anyways. Again, it kind of depends on the parcel. If it's a 15-acre parcel, I probably won't do a perk test just because it'll perk somewhere on the property. But yeah, so I do do part of that due diligence beforehand and even some of the minor due diligence items I have from the softwares that I use and that helps me from a negotiation standpoint as well.
Speaker 1:Yes, good point, good point. That's really good. I want to go back to the perk test, because I'm like a third grader when it comes to land. What is a perk test?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I usually ask AI or ChatGPT to explain perk tests for me too. So I use AI a ton in my business, me too. So I use ai a ton of my in my business. But, um, so yeah, perk test, basically that allows, lets you know whether, whether land will perk for a septic system, so you can do a perk test and it'll come back as okay, this land perks for a mound system or a conventional system, and a mound system everyone's seen them. It's in people's backyards. Where it's, it's a mound in someone's backyard or front yard. Um, so conventional is definitely better. It's cheaper for the end buyer to have to then install um, but that's basically what a perk test shows you. Um, honestly, when I get those perk tests back from the soil scientists, I plug them into chat gbt and be like does this perk for conventional or mound? And uh, and I just roll with it because that's you gotta you gotta kind of stay in your.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I'm definitely not an expert, but I know it's one of the pieces that needs to be done as a land investor.
Speaker 1:What makes it land not perk Like, what makes it not be able to put anything on it as far as septic or mound or holding tank or any of those kinds of things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that can be a number of things, so it can be just bad soil in the area, it can be wetlands, sometimes we'll make it not be able to perk or drain well. So that's basically what the PERK test does, is it tests how soil drains? And then slope can play a factor too, because you need your septic system to be parallel with the contour lines or like the slope of a property. So like slope, wetlands and just different soil types can impact things. I know, like in the southeastern part of the United States, especially in like North Carolina, a lot of properties are notorious for not perking, whereas in Wisconsin you can usually at least do a mound system.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, cool, I always thought holding tanks were kind of like a backup, like if you can't do anything else, you can always throw a holding tank in or something. I don't know if that's true, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yep, if you can't do anything else, you can always throw a holding tank in or something. I don't. I don't know if that's true. Yeah, yep, you can. I've never had to go that route, but I know that you can. I think that incurs a little bit more costs and some nuance to it, but you'll have to have me back on the podcast and talk about holding holding tanks.
Speaker 1:If I ever do one, we're just ask chat, gpt when we hit exactly that. We're done recording and it'll tell us all the answers. So, right, right. So buyers wise. Going back to this, you were talking about pre-marketing some of this stuff. Are you traditionally looking when you're, when you're? So you got under contract. Now you're gonna go pre-market it. Are you traditionally networking and just like cold calling builders? Is that who you're trying to pre-market it to? Is it realtors Like? Who are you typically trying to target with? You said you got a buyer's list. Are those developers? Are those realtors Like who's on your? Who's the avatar on there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, a little bit of both, so it kind of depends on the parcel. So I bought two one and a half ish acre parcels in Waukesha. So Waukesha, really good area, great, expensive too. So, like for that one, at first I marketed it to builders to see if they would be interested. Then next in line was realtors who have sold land right in that specific pocket within Waukesha. So it's builders, it's realtors. Kind of depends on the parcel. Sometimes I won't waste my time with pitching a 7-acre parcel to a builder, because what are they going to do with it? Builders want to buy at such a steep discount anyways because they have their own profits to make and margins that they genuinely need. So, yeah, otherwise it can be potentially listing it on Facebook Marketplace as a contract to be assigned type of thing, and you get a lot of leads from Facebook Marketplace, and as a contract to be assigned type of thing, and you get a lot of leads from Facebook Marketplace. It's crazy, and I've sold probably at least three to five deals to people that I've found from Marketplace.
Speaker 1:Wow, and are these typically end buyers then that are going to build and put their own thing on it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly. Or people. It's crazy. I mean, people use land for so much and even as I got into the land game I was like who's going to be the end buyers? I don't know anyone who really buys land, but there's so many land buyers out there, whether it's for hunting, people want to put a camper up, people want their hobby farm or people who want their dream home. There's so many buyers that are out there and luckily, I've had success on flipping a lot of these properties pretty quickly too.
Speaker 1:Wow, what is Lance? So you said you have kind of a buy box. It sounded like what is it? What is like a lead that you're like no, I know like within 30 seconds this isn't going to work. What's a? Give us maybe some quick crunch criteria that you could easily eliminate some potential, you know leads that would have you chasing, chasing something that's never going to pan out or be worth the worth the squeeze.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So I would say for my cold calling service I get about 50 leads per month and of those 50 leads I would say Actually I know my numbers it's about 25% to 30% of those 50 are qualified leads. And how me and my team determine qualified leads is is there a decent amount of motivation from the seller? And number two are they within 120% or less of market value? Because if something's worth 100K and someone has told our cold calling company in the script that they want 200K, we'll just usually move on from that one, unless it's a huge development potential, but usually it's not. So that helps you filter out leads and really focus on the good ones.
Speaker 1:So yeah, motivation and pricing are two huge pieces to know whether I can do business with someone or not. Okay, what about like infill lots, like in different cities and stuff like that? That's something like I think that's where we've been kind of seeing some of these leads come in and we were like I don't know what to. I mean, is this thing worth a dollar or 10,000? I don't know. Do they have to pay us to buy this lot? I'm not really sure. But what do you see with some of the infill lots in the cities where maybe the surrounding houses are older, the neighborhood's older, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those are tough to do business with because usually they're I don't know quarter acre or less. There's just not a ton of margin where it makes sense for you to then take on a private money lender and do all the due diligence and pay realtor fees. By the end of the day it's not really worth your time as a land investor. So even on the front end a lot of times, depending on the county or the area, my minimum acreage will be typically half acre at the least amount, but usually it's like the minimum is about two acres. So I don't see a lot of those infill lots. There are land investors that are out there where they just focus on infill lots and they kind of go that route, but I just don't see it as being worth my time yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool, I'm not crazy, then, because I got a buddy of mine. He's doing new construction in North Carolina and he does a lot of infill lots, but I think where he's at is the surrounding area is nice Like. It's like you put up a new house, it doesn't look out of place. We're like in green Bay, for example. If I go to town and I try to put up a new construction, it's going to look like a fish out of water, right, and they always want to be. You want to be the ugliest house on the nicest block, right, and they're the opposite. When you do a new construction, you're the nicest house on an ugly block, totally Not going to have to spread there. Yep, exactly, yeah, that's awesome, dylan. Anything else that our audience should know about new construction or not new construction but land flip, land development, any of that kind of stuff that maybe we didn't get to at this point yet that may be relevant for somebody out there listening to this that might have an interest in this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I would say land is really kind of a blue ocean in terms of like finding leads where you can maybe get something rezoned, like there's so much opportunity within land. And I would say the one thing that's important to know you can listen to something on a podcast and think it's the next best thing. I do spend a ton of money in marketing. It's usually between marketing and my team. It's probably $6,000 to $10,000 every single month. So it is a capital intensive business.
Speaker 2:But now I'm starting to get the machine moving. I'm starting to build a very lean and mean team, so there's a lot of costs that go into it. But honestly, it just takes one or two deals to get back your marketing costs and then you're kind of off the races and you're trying to build a legitimate business. So land is fun. I could talk about it all day and, yeah, feel free to have anyone reach out to me and I'd love to help. If you are interested in getting into land or you get a land deal that you want to run by me, I'd be happy to comp it or have my team do that and I'll send some house leads your way too, corey.
Speaker 1:There we go. That's what we're talking about Now. What about JVs? What if I have something? Could I JV something with you, dylan?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely, yeah, and I've done that before. And I guess, another important thing with land there's so much opportunity in terms of how you structure a deal, like you can use a private money lender, pay on debt, you can do a JV from an equity standpoint and even, like my big 45-acre parcel, I'm buying that on seller financing and you can negotiate the interest rate, as you know, corey, and there's just so much opportunity. You can even sell land on seller financing. So a lot of the real estate listeners who love their monthly rent payments well, you can still do the same thing with land if you sell something on a land contract.
Speaker 1:So there's so much opportunity in land that it's been a blast, yeah, I got a good buddy who's down in Florida but he's a coach for a land business and that's how he built. A ton of his passive income was out in Colorado. He lived in Colorado for a long time and he would buy these parcels, sell them to people who want to put their ATV or camper on it, and he did it all. He'd buy it on seller financing. He'd sell it on seller financing. He'd just wrap the mortgage and get the spread between what he was paying the seller. He'd mark up the price, keep a spread on the interest rate plus on the higher purchase price and you know he's got mailbox money coming in on land and there's no toilets to fix, there's no roofs breaking down.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's a pretty cool, attractive uh model there. Not that I want to talk to anybody out of residential real estate, cause I need you guys to buy wholesale deals, but maybe we'll start throwing some land in on some of this stuff as well with uh, on some of this stuff as well, with maybe some help from Dylan here. So yeah, that's awesome, dylan, if anybody wanted to talk about a land deal with your joint venture with you, or just, you know, talk to you about land. What's the best way for them to get in contact with you, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say just reach out to me on Facebook, dylan Rusch. So it's D I think my Instagram handle is D-R-U-S-C-H-5. But feel free to DM me and I'd be happy to connect and JV on something or just help people out, which is super important too.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. Well, I got one. I'm going to run past you as soon as we hit stop record on this. I love it. Well, maybe we'll JV in before the day is over here. Hit stop record on this, so maybe I love it. Well, maybe we JVN before the day's over here. Oh, we'll see. Well, everybody too. Thanks for tuning in before we let you go down. We always ask one final question, and this is where we have people outside of Wisconsin listening to this. They're thinking about maybe investing in Wisconsin, and so we like to give them a little flavor of what Wisconsin is all about. What is your favorite Wisconsin tradition or place to visit here in the state?
Speaker 2:Yeah, my wife and I have a soft spot in our heart for Madison, wisconsin. Obviously it's the state capital. That's where we met. We went to college there and we just love it. The bike paths, all the events, the Badger games, the parties, the tailgating Madison's awesome. We love it and we lived there for a while after college too, and we definitely miss it. And we we lived there for a while after college too, and we definitely miss it. But if you're ever in the state, I would definitely recommend checking out Madison and having a great time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially if you can pair it in with a, with a football game Right At at the stadium there. Dude, that's like awesome environment for sure. Great time State street you can't, can't, miss that. Yes, can't beat it. No, awesome man.
Speaker 1:Well, guys, if you got some value out of this I say this every episode. I said it earlier in the episode, so if you're still listening, that means you got some value out of this. You didn't tune us out yet. Please share this Again. It's going to help your brand, it's going to help people know what you do, but it also helps us get more ears listening to this and it helps us spread the word.
Speaker 1:People investing in Wisconsin, bringing more opportunities for you to JV, with some really cool people like Dylan, and allows us to bring other other guests on here. So share the episode. You got some value out of it. If you're interested in talking about real estate you're not ready to get on a buyer's list yet and you want some advice from somebody from our team, you can go to our website, wisconsindiscountpropertiescom. Just put your information in the contact us form instead of putting your information on the front page, and somebody from our team will reach out to you and we'll have a conversation to see if you're needing some help and connected to some lenders or some contractors or some other cool people, we can always be there as a resource for you to help you in this fun journey we call real estate, because, as you can tell from Dylan and I, we just love talking about real estate, so we're not opposed to hopping on calls with you. So that's it for this episode. Guys, we'll
