Generate Income Through Recreational Land | Guest Bryan Glass, ALC

         

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Intro: Welcome to the REALTORS Land Institute podcast, The Voice of Land, the industry's leading land real estate organization.

Justin Osborn: This is Justin Osborn, Accredited Land Consultant with the Wells Group in Durango, Colorado. On today's episode of the Voices of Land podcast, we're talking to RLI member and accredited land consultant, Bryan Glass. He is the broker owner of Glass Land and Home located in Paris, Texas. He and his team of 14 agents service both Texas and Oklahoma, specializing in farm and ranch, recreational and rural real estate. Bryan is an accredited land consultant and also the owner of Red Leg Outfitters, providing guided hunts in Texas, Oklahoma, and Alberta, Canada. Welcome to the podcast, Bryan.

Bryan Glass: Hey, Justin. How you doing today? 

JO: Man, I'm doing good. I appreciate you doing this and I'm excited. As a previous client customer of Red Leg there in North Texas, I got to figure out how we can make this Alberta Canada trip happen.

BG: We can make it happen just as quick as you say go. Yeah. Justin, it's great to be on today. Obviously, I love supporting RLI, I love supporting the podcast, and I enjoyed getting to have you in camp this past fall with your family, and talk some land deals and then also talk about this podcast. So I do appreciate you letting me be on today.

JO: Well, yeah, man. Giving our listeners a little bit background, how this whole, I'll call it recreational real estate that you specialize in, how'd you fall into this in Southern Oklahoma and North Texas? 

BG: Yeah. Well, obviously I've been tied to land my whole life. Born and raised in a ranching and farming background. I also did a lot of hunting and outdoor recreational activities as a young kid. Very fortunate that. And I think that set the tone for the future. Fast forward into, post-college, I got into the outfitting business, and that's been, I think 15 years, something like that now. And then I obtained my real estate license shortly after college. I went to work with Renee Harvey, which most people know from RLI and from other reasons, she's been very successful and I worked for her for a long time until I decided to branch out on my own and started my brokerage, Glass Land and Home.

BG: And I've just always been tied to the land. So being in the hunting industry has really created a niche market for me in the recreation land sales. I eat, sleep and breathe it. So we are fortunate in our geographic location just outside of Metroplex in Dallas-Fort Worth that we have lots of it and everybody wants it. And so, that's really how I got started and just being able to provide expertise, knowledge, and the wherewithal to locate properties for families, for potential landowners and to really provide that knowledge, firsthand knowledge on what the potential may be is really what I enjoy about it. I mean, throughout COVID and we've had lots of agents and residential agents that have sold plenty of land.

BG: We all know that. And sometimes those transactions with those agents have been really good, and sometimes we all cringe. I like to think that, you not only know it, but you can also really use your experience to help that client. And a lot of people can't say that, we've all been fortunate we've had some land deals that just fall in your lap. But I think part of being an outfitting business, being a four generation Texan and a farmer and rancher all ties in hand in hand and lets you know that not only do we sell it, but we know it.

JO: Now, Bryan, the majority of the properties you're selling, is it, obviously for hunting and fishing, but what percentage would you say, especially the past few years since the COVID era, has that shifted to, alright, well, now we're selling properties to folks that they don't even hunt and fish. They're just looking for a place to get out of the Metroplex or looking for a place to go ride four-wheelers or go look at the dark skies. Talk to me a little bit how that's changed the past few years.

BG: Yeah, yeah. I think, traditionally, most of your sales were more so on a weekend getaway, traditional hunting and fishing place, a place just to truly recreate. Obviously since COVID took place it's changed. It's changed a lot of things, but especially the dynamics of land sales. You just see so many more people wanting to get out and have a place to camp, to ATV ride, to fish, to trail ride, to watch the solar clips, what, you name it. And we have always been really big on the outdoor industry, but that's not realistically the only thing. And so you also, you can't be so narrow minded to think that it's just a hunting and fishing place when we're marketing these properties. It's so much more than that.

JO: Yeah. Absolutely, man. That's one thing we talk about in the recreational land class that I teach is, trying to figure out who the target market is has really gotten a lot harder. It's also made it easier, I think, in some aspects to sell properties and that we're not trying to only hit up that hunter or that fisherman, but saying, all right, man, we could be selling properties to people that want to do all those things that you just mentioned. And man, I sold properties. I won't go into the whole story 'cause I have the recreational real estate class, so it'll be repetitive for some folks, but they had these hippies show up up here in Durango, man, I thought they were going to be looking at a property to camp on and they were gathering mushrooms for the restaurants and selling them to these high-end restaurants in Telluride and Durango and all over southwest Colorado. It's like, man, I never would've thought I would've sold a property up at 9,500 feet elevation that's got elk all over it to some guys wearing Birkenstocks hunting mushrooms.

BG: Right. Yeah. You don't know what you don't know. And so that's really hits on that, is there's so many more opportunities out there that are not your traditional reasons for a sale. And it is important that we keep our mind open, and that we look at what is the highest and best use. We always do that. But yeah, what else, what opportunities are out there? And I think that talks about one. We always look at the end user and a place to get out and recreate and raise your family and get away from the hustle and bustle. That's the easy part. Another one, obviously on the outfitting side that we see, and I know from being with a bunch of the guys that are all on, and you, it's always talking about the, obviously, your elk population there in Colorado and Southwest, excuse me, in New Mexico.

BG: And you're talking about private landowner tags, and that's just a huge business, whether it be over the counter. I've been fortunate enough to do a lot of elk hunting, but I'm not going to talk about your business 'cause I don't know it as well. But we look at other forms of income for these recreation properties. And one, is obviously, those are the forms of leases, or day rates or selling tags outright, which we don't have that luxury here. But that's big business, I mean, that can really supplement somebody's income. Especially as these land values and prices have appreciated so much over the last five years, you've got to be resourceful and figure out other ways to make this thing, I won't know if I'll use the word cash flow, but at least, it takes a lot of money to not only purchase a farmer ranch or rec track, but also to maintain it.

BG: And whether it be implements and tractors to, an overseer or caretaker to taking care of the cabin that you're only going to be at once a month, it takes money. And we look at it a little bit differently in a lot of these places that, you do get a gentleman that needs to 1031 some money into a place and it's got, let's say 120 acres of tillable ground, but it's also got 80 acres and a irrigation lake. And what income potential does that have on the recreation side? And I think that's being knowledgeable of the market and shown additionally, 'cause nine times out of 10, a farmer doesn't care anything about a deer or a hog or a duck or anything like that.

BG: And his grandson may still get to fish anytime he wants, but also if he can pick up a daily lease rate or a seasonal lease or something like that, that puts money back in that producer's pocket and allows him to buy diesel fuel for their center pivot or to make one tractor payment or whatnot. And so that's, I get in the away a little bit from the recreation side, but that's important. I think that helps sell. So it's easy for the owner operator, the owner user, to buy a place, say, yeah, we like to hunt, we like to fish, we like to kayak, we like to watch the butterflies and raise my family. But it's also, it comes into play for the non-traditional type sale. What value add is in this piece of property? And I think that's being tied to what I do really allows for that to really be seen, whether it be something, because you know, you hunted with me, some of the places that I lease myself and or just have connections with people, I think it all ties together and makes my business a little unique.

JO: Well, it does. Where I'm at up here, we can sell riverfront property in Southwest Colorado, anywhere 10 to 30,000 an acre, you get down into New Mexico, you can pick some of that stuff up, basically drops in half, 5000 to 15,000 an acre depending on how close it is to town. But it's hard to make the numbers work. And I know you joke about cashflow, y'all can at least get a lot closer to making that happen where you're at 'cause you've got a lot more opportunity. For us it's, elk hunting, deer hunting and fly fishing. And that's really about it, whereas you've got so much more opportunity with the white tail, with the hog, with the ducks, the geese, the skeet shooting, the upland birds that we were hunting down there. I mean its...

JO: You're a lot more diverse with your opportunity for your landowners to make money. And I think that's great. But you talk about the value, I can tell you, we had three generations of Osborns on your property. My dad was there. I was there. I had my son. And man, there's a huge emotional value. You talk about that grandpa. When grandpa's sitting there and the 16 year olds limited out on ducks, it's hard to put a price tag on what that's worth because it's just, there's so much emotion to it. And it was really cool being able to experience that with my dad, with my son, family bonding time, all thanks to you and your guys at Red Leg Outfitters, man. That was awesome.

BG: Yeah, that is special. I think some of that has gone by the wayside, honestly. We get so busy, we get so caught up just with life, with our work, with our, and other family events, whether it's soccer on Saturdays or whatever. And especially, hunting and outdoor industry is a dying breed. Our landscape has changed so much across the country. You've got more kids that are not growing up in outdoors, and it is special. I'm very fortunate to have been able to and still go out and do those kind of things with my dad, with my friends. I mean, that's how I grew up, and whether it be around a campfire or whatever, and it is emotional, it is memories. I think it's very important that we continue to seek places, whether they're owned or leased, or on a guided hunt or whatever to continue to do that. It is special. I really did enjoy getting to spend time with y'all, and not only that, especially just knowing you through RLI and teaching me in some of the classes before I got my ALC, and then getting to share a table with you last year at the RLI in Denver, it's really cool. We talked about the tables, so yeah, I wouldn't rule a guide service. You're like, okay, yeah, we may want to do something, but it was really cool to sit around and talk about some land deals and some things that y'all were looking at.

BG: Man, that's full circle. And I think that's the only thing we could have done better is if y'all would have bought one of my properties. But I'm still pitching those deals. I tried, I tried. If any of my sellers ever hearing this, I try. Yeah, but no, it's full circle, man. That's everything. And that's what's so unique about RLI is the people you meet. And of course we have, I don't know when this is going to come out, but we've got our, the conference coming up in mid-March, man. I'm so looking forward to that. I don't know if this will come up before that or not. If it does, I hope you can attend there in Louisville, Kentucky. And if not, I hope you did attend and you had an incredible time because it is, since I started with Land 101 in Macalester, Oklahoma...

BG: I'm going to go with like four years ago now. Man, it's been an incredible journey meeting all those guys from the RLI chapter of Oklahoma, which are a pretty tight knit, really good group of people, just started my journey through RLI and getting my ALC and being in Denver last year and meeting you and a bunch of other incredible people. So it's been a really good thing.

JO: Yeah, it's a great group, man. And you talked about the Land 101 class and I briefly hit on the recreational land class, but make sure everybody listening understands, quick little plug here that if you have not taken that recreational land course, it is offered through Land U and it's also offered virtually and in person at select chapters. So I recommend go to rliland.com and click on the learn tab and you can take a look at where that course is going to be offered here in the near future if you'd like to take it. Bryan, let's talk about a little bit of the risk, the liabilities that you run into selling these types of properties. Are you ever hitting up stuff with, I guess you probably don't have zoning like we do here, but what about neighbors or problems that you may run into that our listeners that want to sell some of this stuff need to keep in mind? 

BG: Absolutely. Yeah. So obviously, regardless of where you are in the country, land is land, but there's always different outside factors that affect certain things. One for us is we're trying to underwrite a deal. It's no different than if you were looking at buying a cash flow multi-family deal or a commercial deal. You're underwriting the deal from the moment that you and your client step foot inside the gate. You open the gate, you're looking at, what boxes does it check? Obviously, it checks the aesthetics. We like the water feature on it. We like the cabin. Okay. Well, now let's dive into it. What are our neighbors like? What's our intended use? Are we buying 10 acres to recreate on? Are we buying a thousand? If we're buying 10 and wanting to put in a, looking to put in a gun range, what does that look like? Obviously, there are no governances to shooting and recreating or whatever on your property, but there's also the factor of being a good neighbor.

BG: And we get that a lot. A lot of people, hey, can we hunt on this property? Absolutely, you can. Can we shoot a raccoon in the back? Sure, you can. Can we have a gun range? You can. However, the gentleman around the backside of this property, it's heavily treed, but he's not going to be probably very happy with you. So maybe we need to find a place that's a little more suitable. I mean, you can do that, but it's not going to be good.

BG: Two is just, yeah, I mean, I'm going to go back to, what are your goals and does this property support those goals? So you're just going to underwrite that deal. Obviously, two, if you're looking at on income production side, you're like, Hey I'm looking to sell these elk tags or I'm going to lease it out to an outfitter and let him do that. Just obviously your liability as a landowner, is it, do you have a general liability placed as an additionally insured by the, I say about an outfitter, multiple people all over just lease out their ground just for individuals. So let's just say it's for, it's you and your brother and your dad and son, and y'all have had a place and children's before, but you lease there. It's 250 acres. What's the liability for that landowner? He's going to pick him up 1200 bucks a gun for that place, it's 48,000, 4,800, excuse me, or, that's a nice little pay.

BG: He can buy feed for his yearlings for, a couple of truckloads anyway, something like that. But what's the risk? We always, we've got some really good underwriters, insurance providers here that I put my clients in contact with. But like I said, do you have a lease in place? Do you have any insurance as additional loss, additional insurance? So, those are things that I like to, we really have to consider. I think that's part of the knowledge and value add that we provide. I don't know if that's just by being in the business, being the recreation side and also being an ALC. I mean, there's plenty of people that can go out there and open a gate and say, yeah, sure, buy it, do whatever heck you want. But those folks aren't, they don't know what they're doing, which in turn is going to come back on that client. And so that's why I feel it's very important to know who you're working with a selfish plug for any ALC.

BG: There's a small group of us throughout the country, I mean, and then also there's plenty more out there that are extremely good at what they do. But as a client, make sure that you're working with somebody that actually knows what they're talking about because at the end of the day, you can, it's going to come back on you.

JO: Well, it does. And you're you're right, Bryan, that there's a lot of ALCs out there. You and I both got to where we're at by having other people help us, having good mentors that took us under their wing. And so I just want to make sure our listeners know that on our RLI website, rliland.com, we do have a find a land consultant tool that you can click on. And if you're new to the industry or maybe you've been selling residential properties and you're getting into land, but you want to have somebody to really kinda bring you along, teach you the right way to do this so that you don't get in over your head, check that out. The find a land consultant tool is on our RLI website and bring somebody in with you to make sure you're representing your client's best interest.

JO: Bryan, I got another question for you here. You're talking about the day leases, the $1,200 a gun, the added value. Do you ever get to a point where, let's say you're going to sell a recreational property and you can add all those values to it and say, all right, maybe this land would be worth, I don't know if I'm close, but your neck of the woods, let's call it $3,000, $5,000 an acre, whatever it is. And then you say, well, you are bringing in all this extra income. We can bump it by 5%, 20%, I don't know, because of that type of income. How often, if ever, does that ever happen? 

BG: I can't say. Honestly, I can't say that I've ran across that only because of the supply and demand of our market over the last three to three to four years. I'm not saying that value is not there. But I really feel like that piece of dirt is going to transact regardless because now, even a, I don't even know what I would call an undesirable piece of property. But let's say one that's just not as shiny, there's just been so much money in the markets. There's been so much demand. It's sold regardless. Okay. But I do know, I have a client of mine that just signed a pretty lucrative waterfowl lease, 10 years at north of $40,000 a year for 600 acres. I mean that, you start looking at that. Okay. That's bad. That's a true value add.

BG: Like somebody says, Hey, not only is the ground worth what it's worth, but I've got, I have true income on this place. I can park my money there. So that does change some things. They told me about that. There's a group out of Dallas, I used to lease the property, I did for like six or seven years from the landowner. And these guys came along and offered a whole lot more than Bryan could. And I'm like, heck yeah. Good for you. So I do think you could easily make that happen. Justin. I just had not seen that.

JO: Yeah. Well, that makes sense, man. I mean, there's so much demand out there. It's good to hear that your demand is as strong as ours. I mean, I don't know a part of the country, we've been doing these podcasts with folks all over the country. And it's the same story everywhere you go, at least with land. I mean, maybe there's some houses in the city that are starting to sit on high days on market, but every land broker I talk to, there is more demand than there is inventory for right now.

BG: I completely agree. Obviously our market has shifted a little bit over the last 18 months, and we're probably seeing a few corrections, but we just see, there's still just too much demand and too much money in the market. So even with maybe some slight corrections in price point, the demand still outweighs it.

JO: Well, and the shift that I'm seeing is it's just getting to a balanced market, yeah, we put something on the market, we get six offers and it goes 20% over asking price. I mean, that's not healthy, that's not balanced, and everybody just took that ride while it was here. And so now it's getting back to, all right, it may take three months, it may take five months, but that's not unhealthy. That's just a balanced market.

BG: A guy told me the other day that we had to go back to work.

JO: Yeah, exactly. [laughter]

BG: We actually have to market now. It's been incredibly good for a lot of folks and we all know that. And I see no reason why we can't continue to have a strong, stable market.

JO: Bryan, anything else as we're getting towards the tail end here that you want to make sure you hit on that we didn't get an opportunity to? 

BG: I don't think so, Justin. You've asked some great questions. Once again, I appreciate the opportunity. It's always great to talk about land and the land industry, especially with you and I just appreciate that.

JO: Well, I enjoyed it too, man. I appreciate you taking time to join us today and making sure our listeners really get a better understanding of the steps that are necessary to create a recreational property and show what kind of income it can produce. If our listeners wanted to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that? 

BG: Sure, probably by email. That would be Bryan, B-R-Y-A-N, at glasslandandhome.com. We're here in Paris, Texas, Northeast Texas, and service, as Justin said earlier, Northeast Texas and Southeast Oklahoma. I'd love to visit anybody at any time.

JO: Well, thanks, man. And folks, if you want more expertise on land real estate topics, be sure to check out the RLI blog, follow us on social media, and of course tune in for the upcoming episodes of the Voices of Land podcast.