Welcome to the Purpose Driven Investor, where we build more than portfolios, we build communities. I'm your host, Robert Howell, a real estate investor and founder of Define Communities. Each week, we'll explore how purpose and profit connect through affordable housing, land home packages, and impact-driven investing. If you're a lender, land seller, or a partner who believes money should move with meaning, you're in the right place. All right, everyone. Welcome back to the Purpose Driven Investor Podcast. I'm your host, Robert. Today is an episode that I've really been looking forward to. Brent Bowers is not only a wonderful and phenomenal real estate investor and educator, he's one of my close friends and actually a business partner in the Land Home League, which we'll talk about here in a minute. But his story is pretty powerful. Brent spent over eight years as an army officer, gone so often that he eventually realized he was missing the moments that mattered the most, time with his wife and time with his children. And that desire pushed him into real estate back in 2007. Right, Brent? Yes, sir. And, uh, started with his first home and eventually discovered the strategy that completely changed his family's life, which is vacant land. And so today Brent is, uh, CEO of Zach buys houses and also the land sharks and, uh, spans across land investing, uh, some homes, some rent to home spaces. Um, and you know, I think what's really unique about him is not just his portfolio, but also his philosophy. And Brent, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I read a quote that you kind of live by, I think, is your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people's interests first, which I think is a really powerful statement. I'd love to dig into that as we get going here. But today, we're going to talk about not only land deals, but we're going to talk about purpose, family, and building freedom without losing what makes life more meaningful. So let's go ahead and jump in here, Brent. And let's talk about your backstory, your origin. How did you get here? Where did it all start? But before we do that, Man, I'm so honored to be here, Robert. And I'm even more honored to be your number two guest. I would prefer the number one, but I at least got ahead of Chris. That's the main thing. So eat that, Chris, if you're listening to this. No, Chris is Robert's other business partner on his mobile home building business. But yeah, man, I absolutely love just knowing I met you in South Carolina several years ago. You're taller than you look on Zoom, that's for sure. Does that help? Yeah, it helps. Yeah, so where did I start? I started out in 2007. I bought that first rental property. I have always been into business. I've been reading Robert Kiyosaki books, yes, but also Donald Trump books like when I was in high school and middle school, the art of the deal, had a lawn service growing up. Yeah, I bought that first rental property in 2007, 2008 and 2009, kind of kicked my butt. So I joined the military. I thought it'd be easier in the military. I took a break from real estate until about 2013, got back into buying rental properties and wholesaling houses. I found land in 2015. Really because my back was against the wall. We had our first baby, me and my second wife. My first wife, we ended up divorcing on my second deployment or actually splitting up because I was just gone all the time. That's where that you know, the land business came in, and I really just needed to replace my income. But I love what we're doing today. You know, it's land on steroids, really. We're sharing God's love through affordable housing. I took that from you, Robert. I've been using it quite a bit. After I said it three times, it became mine. But no, I actually just closed on my first mobile home park about six months ago as well. Thanks to you and Chris's guidance, and I'm stabilizing that right now. But yeah, it's just been phenomenal. I've loved land since 2015, but it's almost like I got a new fire and putting these branding mobile homes on land. I've done it haphazardly all these years, so now I finally got a system and a in a process and I didn't come up with that. I was just kind of falling through the motions, That's awesome. Love that. And I think you got an unfair advantage because you started with land and how to find land at discounted values and discounted prices. So talk about kind of what made you discover land. How did you learn how to find land Yeah, well, I had kind of cut my teeth on the rental business, and then I learned wholesaling houses through Wholesaling Inc. And that was kind of like, you know, up and down for me. It was really hard while I was in the military. But I heard a podcast just like this, where a guy was talking about how he would go to all these tax auctions and drive all night long, you know, coming back from them, and he'd buy a bunch of parcels of land and like double his money over the next coming weeks. And I was like, man, I'm not really making money in real estate. I'm holding these properties. I got rentals. I got terrible tenants. I'm having to evict people. If I ever leave the army, I'll lose all these properties because these are not cash flowing properties. I'm going negative. Well, I heard this concept about land. I was like, man, no one else is talking about this. Why is no one else talking about this? I'm from Okeechobee. There's land everywhere. There's cows everywhere. You gotta be rich, a rancher, or a dairy farmer to own land in Okeechobee. And I just can't just sit on this stuff and wait for it to pay me. But the way this guy was talking about it on the podcast, I was like, okay. There's something to this. So I immediately took action with it. And literally, I bought the first parcel, 285 bucks, not buildable, garbage land, and sold it for five grand. Why didn't you make five grand in a month in the military? So I almost felt like I hit the lottery doing these. And I just kept doing them over and over and over and just perfecting That's great. Love that. You touched a little bit on it, but why is land better than houses from a Oh, shoot. Well, I'll give you a perfect example. I actually just got three rental properties back almost at the same time. One was my house on 58 acres, 4,000 square foot house that was absolutely immaculate, beautiful. I used to live in it four and a half years ago. I rented it out to business owners. These people own the daycare center that my children went to in Colorado. And then he, the man that was living in there also owned a security company. He's got like 40-something patrol cars in Colorado doing a security company. Well, you think business owners would treat my property right, right? Absolutely freaking beyond destroyed. And I'm the stupid landlord that never sent anybody to inspect. I should be doing that quarterly. So it's my fault. It was my fault. But where I should have had this beautiful property come back to me, I'm literally putting over$50,000 just to get it back how it had. The second property, I just got squatters out. by getting it condemned. And the third property, residential property, I just evicted a tenant that I've been trying to evict for one year. So me and the residential game don't go very well. So that's my experience with houses. And then I've also flipped about 38 houses as well. And every one is different. They all have a story to tell. And it's usually when you open the walls up. Are we going to find dead bodies? Are we going to find bones? Are we going to find pine 2x6s? It's just always something. So when I thought I'd make a big profit on this house flip, sometimes I lost money. Land deals, you're profitable immediately because most of the time I sell the land before I even buy it. I have my buyer already lined up. Same thing with these land mobile home package deals. We know where we're going to be at. Usually, I'm too low. I'm making more on these than I thought I would. That Yeah, that's true. And, uh, you know, in terms of, you talk about flips every once in a while, uh, I'll be talked into doing a flip. Oh, don't ever do that again. Typically I use mobile home flip cause we're the mobile home Kings, but, um, and the last one I did, he opened up the wall and sure enough, got to take all the sheet rock off. You got to take all the installation and you have to take all the siding off. And Well, next time you want to do that, just pull your pants down and flick yourself in the nuts and then edit that part out. Hey, so talk about, you know, I think as we work together the last several years, I've seen your heart for service and really helping other people. Can you talk about kind of what drives that, your service based leadership and, you know, helping others? And, you know, I'd love to hear more about It just fires me up. I don't know where it comes from. I enjoy getting in front of a group. I enjoy getting on stage. I enjoy seeing people's lives change. I can tell you a bunch of things I don't enjoy. It's just like accounting and taxes. spreadsheets and sitting behind a computer, but I just enjoy it. Like I feed off of it when someone does their first land deal or when they buy that, when they send that first campaign, like we had a, so we do five calls a week with Land Home Link. You, Chris, I do two land, and then we also have Blake Allen doing one, Blake Arnold, sorry, doing one for, Land as well. So technically they get five calls, but I just had a guy on there yesterday Jonathan Hill He sent out 500 letters and he created a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in notes 500 offers 500 land offer letters and if anybody wants to copy the land offer letter just go to the land sharks comm forward slash lol but he sent 500 offers out and and did seven deals that created about $150,000 in notes. These notes are where people have to go to work every day to pay him once a month for this land that they bought through Jonathan. So that's kind of the stuff that just lights me up. And that's just a simple land deal. And then we're teaching, what, we've got now 20 something people in Land Home League now. We're teaching them how to make 50K profit per deal. We're gonna And hearing you say that just made me think about yesterday. I was on the land home league call and we had a good attendance yesterday, probably 20 people on the call. Almost, almost, uh, uh, anyhow, a good group of people. And you know, the people that show up are the people that are doing deals. But, um, I went down the list at the end of the call and I'll have to pull up the recording, but, um, and said, Hey, Bryson's on his third deal. Dan's on his 15th deal. Yeah. Daniel, holy cow. And this is on her second deal. So just going through that list made me think, man, that is really powerful. We've only been doing this since December, really January. So let's talk about these people too, as well. And I don't want to give them away, but we, I just heard you mentioned a 24 year old guy. Like 24 years old, like he wasn't born with a silver spoon. And then another guy who's an army, he's in the army, officer, army officer. And the lady, she's, and I don't want to say their name, like you guys can figure out who we're talking about, but she's, she works for the county. Like she's looking to retire. Like we're gonna have, that's what, you asked me what fires me up, like we're gonna provide retirement for a lady that's ready for a retire. 24 year old kid, I don't even know what the heck that's gonna turn into. By the time he's Yeah, by the time he's your age, I mean, he's gonna be a multi, multimillionaire. I'm still pretty young. And then, you know, there's the army officer, you know, he was already doing well with land, but you know, it's like, Yeah, man, it's just, you put the right tools in front of someone's hands, they're gonna use it. And then you got the people that you give them, you can give them the world, you can do it for them, and they still won't get a result. Unfortunately, it seems like. Yeah. Yeah. We try and turn those people away, but nothing against that. Yeah. People get busy, you know, and it clicks later maybe. But, um, talk about coaching. Cause I know you've coached the land shark and now you're coaching land home league together with us. Um, how has coaching Oh shoot is giving me more deals than what i can do every time i turn around there's another deal um and i get overwhelmed but it's uh which i shouldn't that's probably a terrible way to look at it but it's helped my um investing career It's also given me other income opportunities. The more I talk about this stuff, the more lending that people send my way and want to send my way. It's really a multi-facet effect. We call it a force multiplier in the military. Love Yeah, that's so true. All the opportunities that come about. And I think learning too, right? Imagine how much you've learned from other people that are doing the exact same thing that you taught them to do, Yeah, absolutely. And I learn all the time. Always learning, you know, every time I get on one of the Land Home League calls, I learn on the call yesterday, the support call, I get to hear what other people are doing. And I almost feel like it's like I'm cheating the system a little bit. It's like I'm a double agent. Like, well, tell me how that worked out for you. Like, and like, you just build the win. And here's what's cool is our community members, like everyone wants to be a part of a tribe. You get them talking about their win and how they did that first deal before you know it they're running the whole support call answering questions and they get to stand in the spotlight and like get the light shine on them like that's I think one of the biggest keys to the Landsharks community is it's not about me. It's just about us. I didn't create any of this stuff, like none of it. And but we just show we give people the tools. We answer the questions, walk them along. We hold their hand. And now they're the hero. We're Love it. Love it. All right. Let's talk a little bit about the land home league. You can tell everybody it was your idea and you chased me, chased me down for years and then finally talked me into it and said, if you're not going to do Actually, I wasn't trying to create the Land Home League. I was trying to get you guys to share with me how to buy 30-something plus mobile home parks, because you guys have all these mobile home parks, and I'm like, for a couple of years, I saw y'all doing land deals, and you're part of the Land Sharks, and I met you out there at the deal room, I forget. Jenny Smith, yeah. Jenny Smith, yeah. Awesome event. And anyhow, I'm like, man, just teach me how to do this. And then we could also teach other people how to do it. And the way I remember it, you're like, well, let me tell you how we're getting all the money to buy these mobile home parks. And you said, well, we buy land, we buy it cheap, we get it at a discount, and we're plopping brand new mobile homes on it, and we're making at least $45,000. a pop on it. And I was like, well, what's the worst you've ever done on one? I think you said 25K, because the water line was on the other side of the street. So it cost you like 25K to run it underneath the street, had to get a permit, close the street down. But I was like, oh, there's something to that. And I think we pulled the land sharks community. And we're like, hey, what would you all rather learn? How to buy mobile home parks? or how to profit 45K on every land deal. I think the mass majority was by, I was surprised. I thought everyone's going to be like, mobile home park. I thought they'd be chanting in the street. They all wanted to know. I should say there's about 80% or so Well, how do we put brand new mobile homes on land and profit at least $45K on each one of them? A few people wanted to know about mobile home parks, and maybe I can still get you guys to do that course with me. I'm ramping up. I bought my first one, thanks to y'all. Yeah, That's my side of the story. I forgot about the mobile home parks Then we realized, hey, mobile home parks are great, but first you need some money to That's true. So we're working on the active income. The mobile home park is where you put that income. I mean, and here's why I bought one this year for 2025. I needed a massive tax deduction. I'm going to do what's called a cost segregation and paid like almost no federal taxes this year because of that mobile home park. And it's also gonna pay itself off in 12 years with the income it's making now if we never raise rents. So that's like the wealthy man's game. So right now we're teaching people how to do the active income with the land and the brand new mobile home package. Now we gotta do the third course to show them how to make that wealth, that money they're making, make more babies, more money, Yep, yep, it's good point. So what what excites I mean, just the fact that I got like nine of these going and we're looking at like, well, we just came under budget on two of them. Jack's properties, Jack's out in Tennessee. He was under budget on both of them by 13 grand. 12 something on one, 13 on the other. That never happens in a house flip, so that excites me. Number two is we just started, Bryce, we started developing his second lot. And just having all these going and all these different locations and I'm in the gym the other morning and they're talking about affordable housing needed, needed, needed, affordable housing, big, like it's been a big buzzword lately. Workforce housing, affordable housing. And we're providing that. Like once again, I feel like we're on a wave. In 2015, no one was talking about land investing. I feel like everyone's talking about it now. No one's talking about putting branding mobile homes on land yet. We're at the front of that. And I think we have a huge, huge advantage. And Right. Yep. That's the goal. Two weeks, maybe four weeks max. As long as we price it right, get the right location, then we're golden. So let's talk a few more things here. We're going to go through some tactical takeaways, and then I'll go through a few lightning round questions with you. So let's talk tactical first. Tell me, how do I find my first land deal? Because that's the most important, as we talk about whether you're talking about land sharks and just flipping land or land home deals. Finding land is the most important. Given your expertise, what are we going to Yeah, it all definitely starts with the land. And this is not how I started out. This is how I kind of evolved into with all the land deals that I've done. But when I started out, I just went my own backyard. Thank God there was some, you know, inefficient land I was able to get for real cheap and sell someone for more. Because here's the thing. It could be not buildable. It could be not accessible. It could be garbage land. And people want to own American land. I don't care. There's never been a piece of land I couldn't sell. Now, how do I find it today? I want to see demand. How do I find demand? I want to know where the land's selling. I want to see where that land is selling. Once I know where that land is selling, I know that I can make offers to other landowners that own land in that area, and not all of them are going to accept my offer. It's really just a numbers game. It's like, how did I get my wife to go out with me? I just kept asking her. And then eventually she kept going out with me and then I was like, I asked her to marry me. And it's like, it's just a progression. That's all we're doing with these landowners. We're making little bids of connection by making the offers. So once we find the area where there's land selling, I know that means there's demand if it's selling. Then eventually I make the offers and I make enough offers, some are going to say yes. And those few yeses, I can either buy that land and flip it or assign that contract where I wholesale that land. Sometimes we can buy the land and chop it up into smaller pieces. We call that a subdivide. and sell them individually. That's what Walmart does. They buy in massive bulk and they sell in individual items. That's what a subdivide really is. But that's how it works out. And it only takes like one of those a month to have a heck of a good living in this business. And you want to take it even further, you sell it on seller financing. That's where it's like printing money. I feel like I have like 40 printing presses So how do I find a market? You talked about finding an area. Tell Yeah, there's this exclusive website. You've got to be the top 1% of the world to access it, but you need to go to a website called redfin.com or zillow.com. No, I'm just kidding about 1%. You have to have an internet connection, and then you find where land is selling on Redfin or Zillow. Like that's, that's how I'm finding it. Like nothing And I would add for land home packages, same exact process. Use Zillow, look at the sold comps. For me, I want to sell for $250,000 plus, maybe 225, depending on the market. And I'm going to look and see where, where mobile homes or manufactured homes selling for that. Find that area. And then I'm going All right. So lots of people listening here, uh, probably working full time. Tell me about how The best type of people to learn this, because I feel like out of all the people I've coached, so I was a coach in the military and, and, oh, by the way, correction, I was not an army officer for eight and a half years. I was enlisted first. I was in total eight and a half years. Just want to make sure everyone knows that. Um, not a big deal to some people, but could be to some others. Um, All right, so W2, so when I was in the military, I had to be on base by 6 a.m., that's when we started physical training. And I usually would leave about 7 p.m. I was able to start my, I knew I had three years left on my contract, and I was like, I'm not gonna take anything from my land business for the next three years, I'm gonna keep repeat, rinse, repeat, building that snowball. Well, I was able to do it before 6 a.m. if I had a lunch break that day and when we put the kids to bed that evening. So I had to burn the midnight oil from time to time. Now that's a season. You can't do that forever. Now I'm like eight and a half hours of sleep. I track it on my ORA ring. I don't get up at 4 a.m. anymore. That's ridiculous. I try and get my right amount of sleep because sleep deprivation is worse than being drunk. which I did that for many, many years. I don't recommend that. There's other, there's easier ways to do it. There's like hiring like a virtual assistant for $5 an hour to help you, to train you tech, throw them in the land home league course. That's what I recommend people. Have your team members show up to all the calls. Like, why am I training you? Like I need to see your team. That was the biggest mistake I ever made. I go to all these events, Jenny Smith's events, scale, Cody Hoffine, all these things. I took actually my team to UPW, Business Mastery, all that. I finally started getting smart. You need to bring your team with you. Have your team, let us train your team. But how does a W2 person do this? I think they do it even better because you've got to be super How do you say it? You gotta be really hyper-focused on how you spend your time. There ain't no Netflix, there's no scrolling on Facebook. If you have that problem, you need to delete that app off of your phone. There's no wasted time. You don't have time to waste when you have a W-2 job and you're building your business. But I think it's the best because you live off your W-2 job, you can take risk Love it. That's great advice. All right. Two rapid fire questions for you. Doing something hard every day, like either working out or a cold plunge. Um, you know, it's just getting uncomfortable every day, just a little bit uncomfortable every day. And it could be in your business too. You know, maybe you buy that first lot or go ask that first person for money. Do something uncomfortable every day. There's a great Love it. All right. Last question. The title of this podcast is The Purpose Driven Investor. What does purpose Purpose driven. Well, you just invest for the purpose. My purpose is not, I didn't start any of this to get rich. Did it happen? I built a lot of wealth in real estate with the properties we have, gaining equity, paying down more, just tenants doing that. But the purpose for all of it was just to have more time with my family, have more time to do the things I want. Like I race four wheelers now. You know, I like I'm at every event for my kids school except for today. I'm actually saying this. I'm actually going to miss my son's third soccer game today. But I've been at the last two. But it's just like it's being able to control that schedule rather than than the schedule or someone else's schedule control you. That was my purpose. I didn't want anybody else to control or tell me what I'm going to do with my time. That's great. That's no question about it. All right. How do people get Real simple. Go to the LandSharks.com. The Land Sharks. Sharks is plural because we're very powerful together. The LandSharks.com. You can jump right on my calendar. Heck, maybe you want to talk about this Land Home League, what we're doing with these. I've got a lot of horror stories I can tell, help you avoid as well. I only talked about the good stuff on this. We should do another episode of all the like the bloopers, all the mistakes. Yeah. All right, Brent. Hey, appreciate you joining. Really, really thanks for the time and all the information you shared was hugely valuable. And if you guys want to learn about the land sharks or you want to learn about Land Home League, feel free to reach out to Brent or myself. We'd love to talk more about it. Thanks, Brent. Thanks for listening to The Purpose Driven Investor. If today's episode sparked an idea or inspired you to make an impact, connect with me at howellandsons.com. Join our community of purpose-driven investors who are helping families find stable homes while building real returns. Because when