The Business of Land Subdivision

Buy wholesale, sell retail: the lucrative world of land speculation, entitlement, and subdivision

Real estate is nothing without land. While land acquisition is a part of any ground-up real estate deal, some investors and operators make a business out of trading in raw land itself: acquiring, subdividing, entitling, and selling large, undeveloped parcels.

As we’ll see, doing this well can be very lucrative, and relatively small check sizes make rural or exurban land an attractive category for small operators. But land speculation and subdivision comes with pitfalls and challenges that are very different than other categories of real estate. Today, we’ll dig into those challenges and how the best land investors generate great returns.

To do this, we spoke with @landlawyerbrian, a Savannah-based attorney and full-time land investor who has exited over 160 land deals since 2021.

In today’s letter, we’ll tackle:

• The basic mechanics of land acquisition and subdivision;

• Deal economics and returns;

• How operators find sites;

• Diligencing sites and potential pitfalls;

• The role of technology and land subdivision’s future;