Plan A, B, and C: Buy More Land with Brandon Cobb

Brandon Cobb's business model is simple: take farmland, get it approved for housing, and sell it to national home builders like Lennar and DR Horton. The builders have no choice but to buy. They're publicly traded. Plan A is buy land and build houses. Plan B is buy more land and build more houses. There is no Plan C that doesn't involve buying land.

Brandon returns to Real Estate Underground to break down how HPG Capital creates new housing neighborhoods in Nashville, why he stopped building homes but kept developing land, and how he structures deals that pay investors 18% preferred returns with no personal guarantees.

What you'll learn:

- The three phases of land development and how to profit from each one without ever building a house
- How to de-risk a deal by lining up your buyer and getting city approval before spending real money
- Why "big puzzle pieces next to small puzzle pieces" on a GIS map is the buy signal
- How he gets 20% deposits from national builders, released day one, to fund development
- Why he ditched vertical integration after hitting $22 million in annual development
- The biggest mistake he made with strategic partners and how to avoid it
- His "Body, Being, Balance, Business" framework for measuring success

Books mentioned: The Surrender Experiment and The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer

Learn land development: learnlanddevelopment.com (free 8-hour course)
Invest with HPG Capital: hbgcapital.net/waitlist

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Additional Resources:

• Clark St Capital -> Passive real estate investments for busy business owners and executives
• Elevista -> AI SaaS for real estate investors
• Clark St Academy on YouTube -> Learn how to invest in real estate

Social Media:

• LinkedIn -> Ed Mathews (President at Clark St and Elevista)

Transcript

Brandon Cobb 0:00

They have to make stock price go up, and the only way to make stock price go up is to build and sell more houses. So you have to buy land, build more houses. That's plan A now, plan B, that they have. If Plan A didn't work out. It's to buy more land and build more houses. And then of course there's plan C if Plan B doesn't work, which is buy more land and build more houses.

Ed Mathews 0:19

If you're within three feet of me, we're probably talking about real estate, much to my family chagrin. But here's the thing, most people see 7% rates in freeze. I see opportunity. They're waiting for the perfect deal and well, I've vandalized thousands of them and perfect just doesn't exist. So I talk to operators across every asset class, flippers, multifamily, syndicators, note investors, and whatever else is working. No sales pitches allowed, just real lessons from people actually doing it. I'm Ed Matthews, and this is Real Estate Underground. Greetings And salutations Real Estate Undergrounders, it is Ed Mathews again with the Real Estate Underground. Thank you so much for making us a part of your day. You know one of the things that I'm, I'm grateful for is. All of the comments and emails I get and you, like I said, I'm a cheap date. You can email me or call my office and I will spend 15 minutes or at least a cup of coffee with pretty much anybody who's willing to shoo the fat on real estate stuff. I am the geeks geek of real estate, so keep that stuff coming. I'm really enjoying meeting y'all And with that. I have an old friend who's rejoining us Brandon Cobb. Brandon and I met, oh my gosh, three and a half, four years ago maybe. And he was tremendously successful real estate investor down based down in Tennessee. Like the rest of us, the world has changed a couple different times since over those three or four years. And so I Brandon was kind enough to to, to say yes and come back on the show and catch us up with what he's working on.'cause it's really interesting and and also just to catch up on, on his view of the market.'cause he's seen a lot and done a lot. So, Brandon it's good to see you, my friend, and welcome back to the show.

Brandon Cobb 2:09

Yeah, it's great to be back. It's good to see you too. And, and it's been a crazy few years, man. There's a lot to happen and probably a lot talk.

Ed Mathews 2:17

And as lucky would have it, you and I both have microphones and the recording has been pushed, so here we go. So Brandon, for those folks that don't know about you or HPG Capital or all the other stuff you're doing now why don't you give us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Brandon Cobb 2:32

So we, we invent new housing neighborhoods. That's, that's it. In a sentence. We take farmland and we get approved for new housing communities. And when we sell it off to these big national home builders like Lennar d, Horton, those kind of guys. So a lot of people might know that there's like three steps to development. The first is taking a piece of. And getting it approved to do the construction of the community. And so we'll do a lot of land entitlement flips where we, we pre-sell all the land, get it approved, and once it's approved, we already have the buyer lined up and we sell it. So that's the first phase. The second phase is the actual development portion. So we're not building houses yet. We go in, we grade the land out, we put the roads in, we put the sewer, the water, the infrastructure, basically create a neighborhood. With no homes in it. And then we sell the individual ready to build lots to the builders. So that's like the phase two of development. And then there's phase three where you actually build the homes. And so, you know, like we do that as well. So we focus on all three phases. We really like development'cause there's multiple value add strategies. We have three different exit strategies, multiple ways to force, appreciate and control the value of the property. So that's what we do in a nutshell. We focus on the entry level housing market. So. We really believe in affordable housing. Little a affordable, not big. A big A is section eight. Government housing, not doing that. This is, we're focused on that, like$2,000 per month mortgage because you've got 33% of the home buying population. Millennials like myself that wanna buy a home, but less than 10% of these homes being built or affordable. So you got like 33% of the population changing, 10% of the homes being built. Obviously, I don't have to be an economic genius to see the supply and demand imbalance there. So that's what we do here at HPG. Most of the stuff we do is here in Nashville, Tennessee.

Ed Mathews 4:21

Awesome. Yeah, it's it's something that's near and dear to my heart as well. I have you know, my, my kids are, well, my oldest is, is, know, we just released her into the wild. She just graduated from college. So you know, pretty soon her, and I assume her boyfriend will be, you know, looking for a place to live as they. Move on with their lives and, you know so I live in Connecticut and, you know, the, the honest truth about this market is you know, I mean, I live in a, just a, a middle class, maybe upper middle class town, but nothing, you know, nothing. It's not a fancy town by any stretch. It's a nice town and, you know, excellent school system in the median home here in town is about$450,000. I mean, that's outta reach for. Almost, you know, a major portion of the population. And, and I'm not talking McMansions, right? I'm talking, you know, 2000, 2200 square foot, you know, homes, PE people where you, you grow a family and, and live your lives. And, you know, it may not be your first home, but it's, it's probably your second home, right? And so that first and second home band here is completely unaffordable here in the northeast. So something that's. Definitely something that I've, I've been paying attention to as well. So, so I'm curious, you know, you talk about the three stages of of development and so where are you spending most of your time?

Brandon Cobb 5:47

Land entitlement and land development right now. So not building the homes. And the reason is we finished off the last bit of homes that we were building in 2024. The market's been really crappy, right? If you've been in real estate, you probably have noticed this. A lot of people have been hurt in multifamily. Single family residential hasn't been super hot either. So we haven't been building the homes, but like these big nationals that we work with. The reason I love working with'em is because they're publicly traded companies,

Ed Mathews 6:14

Yeah.

Brandon Cobb 6:15

They have to make stock price go up, and the only way to make stock price go up is to build and sell more houses. So you have to buy land, build more houses. That's plan A now, plan B, that they have. If Plan A didn't work out. It's to buy more land and build more houses. And then of course there's plan C if Plan B doesn't work, which is buy more land and build more houses. So they've continued to buy during the last couple years where the market's been kind of crazy, which is why our land deals have continued to do really, really well. But right now we're primarily focused on the land entitlement and land development side. No new construction till the market improves.

Ed Mathews 6:50

So, so first off, I admire the discipline'cause, you know, HBG capital is not publicly traded, so you don't have the pressures of that. You can actually do the right thing for your company and your investors. And, and so. You know, when we talk about you know, straight entitlement, right? You know, I, I'm, and I, and you alluded to it earlier, I'm, I'm thinking roads, pushing utilities storm water management septic management, either septic systems or which is what is in my part of the world in sewer systems. Sounds like it's in, in your, the areas that you serve. And so, you know, when you're acquiring a property. And you are, you know, doing well. Actually, I'm not even gonna, I'm gonna have you explain it instead of me. So walk us through the process when you see a raw piece of land, a farmer who's looking to retire to Florida and go hit golf balls, right? is your process?

Brandon Cobb 7:47

So the entitlement process is a, is a long process, but I'm gonna give you just, just the very get go and it's very simple. It might be long, but it's very simple, right? The entitlements do take, you know, 15 months here in this market to do. But again, you're talking about large paydays, which is why we like to do'em. Like where I'm not trying to do a gajillion deals, like I just want to do, you know, two or three deals a year, you know, have some seven figure paydays and not have to worry about it. But when we get a piece of land on a contract. We get what's called a concept plan done. You go to your civil engineer, they can make you a concept plan. This is just a 2D sketch of the community. So civil engineer tells you how many homes you can fit on it and what it looks like. It's a picture of what is to be. You take that concept plan to the city. If you're in a major metropolis area, you're probably gonna talk to the council person that's over the district. So major metropolises are broken down into districts. So if I'm going to downtown Nashville, it's broken up in the districts, I'm gonna talk to the council person. If it's a suburb that's outside the city, you're gonna go talk to the planning director. That's the liaison between the council that votes and approves new communities. And the developers. So they're the middleman that gives you feedback. If I go to the city and I'm talking with the council person, or I'm talking to the planning director and I show them the concept plan and I say, Hey, I'd really like to do this here. Are you excited about this? And if they look at it and go, we're excited about it, like we wanna do this, take that concept plan to my list of buyers. In this case we work with National Home Builders. And if those National Home Builders are like, yeah, if you get this approved, I'll buy it. Here's the contract, here's the deposit. Then we start the approval process. So that's it in a nutshell. It's very, very simplified. That's all there is. And we do all this during our due diligence period. So we don't have any money at risk or anything like that. We wanna buy, we wanna get city alignment, we don't wanna spend a ton of money on the project, and we wanna line up our buyer during that DD period. And if we get that done, then that's our permission to take it through. If you do that, you'll de-risk a lot of this.

Ed Mathews 9:49

Percent. Yeah, I mean it, if you can figure out the, the inputs and outputs of a deal before you have to throw down major dollars, that that usually works out pretty well for everybody involved. Okay. And so town says Yes. Developer says yes, right? Lennar, Polti, whoever you're dealing with. What's next for you?

Brandon Cobb 10:10

Next and biggest step is going to be to get a preliminary plaid approval. Also call it a tentative map approval. This is where they take your concept plan and they say, yes, we want this. It is approved contingent on seeing the civil drawings. So just like you might have an individual lot. That you can build a home on. The city is not gonna give you a building permit to build that house until they see the architectural plans. Because the architectural plans tell the code department is the window big enough to get a firefighter in there? Right? Is the house too close to the power lines? Whereas the house on the lot, so you've gotta show the architectural plans to the city to get a building permit. That's when you can actually start construction. You have to show the city the civil drawings in order to get a grading permit. The civil drawings are where the road's gonna go. How deep is the water? How deep is the sewer? So you, I gotta, you gotta make sure it's a safe community. Think of land entitlement like this. The city has these different departments. You've got storm water, you've got public works, you've got zoning, you've got the fire department. Their job is not just to service the community that's existing, it's to approve. Make sure that each new community is safe. So when you submit those civil drawings, when you're going through the entitlement process, which is the approval process, you have to get each department to sign off on it. So the fire department is gonna look at the civil drawings and go, okay, do we have a fire? A fire hydrant every a hundred feet or whatever so that there's plenty of fire hydrants to get to the house. Are the homes too close to the power lines? The public works department is gonna be like, do we have a a curb going through? What's the slope of the roads? Right? Slope of the roads can't be over 8%, right? They wanna see that. You can't just have a road going like straight up. Each department is designed. And to make sure that the community is safe. And so that's what we're doing. After you've got that preliminary plaid approval, that's when you're gonna start spending some money on it, which is the civil trial. That's the expensive part. And so that's when you can go to investors and say, Hey, look I've got an approved project I've got an end buyer. In mind or under contract, preferably with a deposit. I need the money to finance the civil drawings to take this through. And so that's how we, we de-risk it so that that's that second step. And to get to that preliminary plot approval, you're probably, you know, depending on how big the development is, right? This is gonna be more expensive if you have a thousand acre development. But you know, for a modest development, maybe you're doing 50 homes, you might need 15, maybe$20,000 at most to get to that preliminary plot approval, you're gonna, you might need to get a traffic study. You're probably going to need to get a geotech report to make sure the soils are good. An endangered species report, make sure there's no bald eagles in the trees, that you're gonna cut down and get a felony, and you're gonna need to get a. Phase one environmental report. This is where you're testing the land. Make sure there's no nuclear toxic sludge that's been dumped and growing. Godzillas outta lizards. You know, stuff like that, that that's most of your due diligence period, or those studies right there to get to your pre preliminary plot approval. But once you get that preliminary product, like you're in business, right? You just need the civil drawings in the city to stamp'em, and then you're good to go. At that point, you'll, you'll get your civil drawing stamped. That's kind of the, the third step there. The city will, they've approved it at that point. The plans then go up to the state and the state's gonna look at it. And they're really concerned about one thing here in Tennessee, which is they'll give you your SW. Permit. That's SWPP Storm Water Prevention Plan. They just wanna see that you've got a plan to make sure that the water's mitigated, and once you get your sweat permit from the state, you are good to go and like really start moving dirt at that point.

Ed Mathews 14:12

Okay. And, and so do you ever stop at that point and not move dirt or is it always for you? Is it always you know, you're clearing lots and, and running the roads?

Brandon Cobb 14:24

So, like I said, you got multiple exit strategies. Phase one, land entitlement. I, we just get land approved and sell it. I can sell the paper, never stick a shovel in the ground, never deal with a contractor or construction. I just get the paper approved and I sell it. And all times I've got a, I've, I've already got my buyer lined up for that. So we do that and we also do it where it's approved and we are moving dirt and creating, ready to build lots for the builders.

Ed Mathews 14:52

Gotcha. And so what are the considerations you know, as you're going through the process, you know, what are some of the examples of, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna get off at this juncture of the project. Like how do you decide,

Brandon Cobb 15:05

it just depends on how much we can get for the finished ready to build pads what we can get for the entitled dirt, how much money and capital we have available. What kind of terms we're getting from the builders? How much of a deposit are they putting down? So there's a myriad of different, what's our capacity with our construction crews if we are doing the development? So it's not a set in stone formula. We take a lot of things into consideration.

Ed Mathews 15:33

Okay. yeah, I mean it's there is some complexity here, which is why not everybody does it. So, so in terms of the the, the process going forward, right? So you are bringing in crews to, to push the road to do the road and to handle storm water management. contractors or are you vertically integrated? Do you have some of those people on, on staff? Like how does that work for you?

Brandon Cobb 15:58

So we used to be vertical integrated and that worked up to doing, you know, 22 million a year in development. Then it broke because the big vertical integration piece that was tough to grow and scale for us.'cause the great thing about vertical integration is you got it all in house, but when it comes time to scale, you're growing multiple companies at the same time and you realize. What your superpower is and what your superpower is not. And what our superpower was not was being general contractors. So we had our own general contracting company and we realized it was just a big headache to grow that business with the other businesses, you know, our land acquisition business and the capital raising business. And so now. We outsource all of that to third party construction companies. Our construction company still oversees them. And like, we've got the experience. We know how to do it. That's what makes us really effective at managing these things.'cause like we, we know what it's like'cause you know, we've done that. So we outsource that and just focus on what our superpowers is, is finding the land and being the money piece.

Ed Mathews 16:59

Okay, so let's, let's talk about that then. I, I'm curious, how are you sourcing these deals? Is this through brokers your own marketing efforts? What are you doing?

Brandon Cobb 17:10

Yeah, so d all the above. Most of what we do is. We have a very targeted list, so we don't do any spray and pray. We have a very targeted list and we hand build our lists or you know, there's some software systems you can use to to, to, you know, give you a list, but you kind of gotta double check it and make sure that it's quality and get rid of the stuff that's due to in it. And then we just reach out to'em, like, we'll just pick up the phone. Our team will call'em. Or we might go. Door knock their actual house. That's primarily what we do, but a lot of business is generated from relationships when, so when you go and you sit down with the planning director and you get to know the elected officials in the area, and you're kind of asking, Hey, who's in the zoo? Who should I talk to? Like they know who's got land and who might be a good fit. We talk to the local brokers in the area.

Ed Mathews 17:59

Yep.

Brandon Cobb 18:00

You know, we've done land deals with, with local brokers that have introduced us to people building a relationship. So all your old sellers that sold you land, they usually don't just own one piece of land, they own multiple. So, you know, we use those existing relationships as well. And then, you know, I, I post every day on social media. Everybody knows we do land development, so they see my posts and they will send us deals'cause they know, like we're in the space. So it's not just one source that gets everything, it's multiple lead gen sources.

Ed Mathews 18:27

Yeah. Smart. And, and then, you know, from a, from a targeting perspective, you mentioned that there are multiple sources, but sounds like you've got that pretty well wired. What's your buy box look like? I.

Brandon Cobb 18:38

So the number one thing that we're looking for is, are our buyers building there? AKA National Home Builders. And by the way. It doesn't matter what type of real estate you're in, it's the same approval process to get a piece of land approved to build a piece of real estate on it. So I don't care if you're doing single family re residential neighborhoods like us, or multifamily, or self storage, it's the same process. We reverse engineer what our buyers want. So go Chad Shipt, top 10 National Home Builders. And just go type their name into Google. Lennar, Nashville Communities, Ryan Holmes, Nashville Communities, DR Horton, Nashville communities. Click the link, a map will pop up. It shows you all the neighborhoods with the addresses in the area. And so we go to those areas. And what we're looking for is sewer access. So you can figure out sewer access in a number of ways. One way is you can just email your local utilities department, but you gotta find a certain area. They won't just give you the full map of the whole city. For terrorist purposes. Yeah. They don't want the tists knowing like where the, you know, the, the, the sewer and water is through the whole city, but that if you give'em an address, they'll show you where the sewer, the surrounding sewers are in that area.

Ed Mathews 19:51

Yep.

Brandon Cobb 19:53

We're looking for the big puzzle pieces next to the really tiny puzzle pieces. What the heck does that mean? Every county and city has a GIS parcel viewer or GIS mapping, and it shows all the land parcels and how they connect together. So it's like a giant puzzle. And all the land pieces are the puzzle pieces that just fit together. And you'll notice when you have a development. It's a bunch of really tiny puzzle pieces, the the small lots that the homes are sitting on,

Ed Mathews 20:21

Yep.

Brandon Cobb 20:21

when you have a giant undeveloped piece next to it or around it or down the road, you've got an opportunity because that development tells us there's sewer access. Nearby sewer means you can get density

Ed Mathews 20:35

Yep.

Brandon Cobb 20:35

you have all the homes connected into a sewer system. To get rid of the waste, you can put more homes on the land. If you don't, you're gonna have to do a septic system or a steps a step system. And that may work as long as the builders are building homes with septic systems, you're in business. If they're not, sorry, they probably don't want the piece of land'cause they won't sewer. And with a septic system, your lots are gonna be a lot bigger. Because the waste has to go through the septic system. It has to be spread out among the lot. So you're not gonna get as much density from land like that. So that's, that's the main thing we're looking for are buyers building in the area. What are the big puzzle pieces among all the small puzzle pieces?

Ed Mathews 21:21

Yeah, buildable lot here in Connecticut on average is anywhere from one and a half, usually about two acres plus. I am curious about the size of the lots down in your part of the world.

Brandon Cobb 21:33

Smallest, 4,000 square feet.

Ed Mathews 21:36

Oh,

Brandon Cobb 21:36

8,000 square feet for your entry level type housing product. Right. You know, the bigger, the more density, you know, the, the, the more affordable you can make the homes. So that's probably for the type of niche that we're going after. That's the size of lots that you needed, but average lot size in Tennessee is probably bigger than that.

Ed Mathews 21:55

Yeah, well, I mean, it's Tennessee, so there, you know, there's, there's at least a section of your, your state where that's farm country and that's,

Brandon Cobb 22:02

Yeah.

Ed Mathews 22:02

a whole thing. So getting back to your buy box. So are you looking for a particular minimum size lot farm or are you, you know, what's the minimum number of houses that it, it's, sense to, to explore a. Getting into a due diligence process.

Brandon Cobb 22:22

50 because that's what our buyers want. Now you can do smaller than that. A regional or a local builder. Maybe they buy, you know, 20, 30 lots or maybe you do 50 and you can slice it up and sell to 10 different builders if you want. Right?

Ed Mathews 22:34

sure.

Brandon Cobb 22:34

what does that look like? You know, the most density you're probably going to get here is like a 20 foot wide town home product that's 45 feet long.

Ed Mathews 22:42

Nice.

Brandon Cobb 22:43

So you know that we can get at most. 12 to 15 units an acre. So if we have five acres, we're in business, if we can get it zoned or if it's already zoned for town home units. If it's not, you're probably at three and a half units per acre, and that's gonna be your single family detached residential home. So in that case, you know you're gonna need 15 acres to be able to get roughly 50 houses there. The reason 50 is important for our buyers, like they gotta justify putting a team there and the project selling for at least, you know, a year, year and a half, something like that. So they gotta have the, the volume to be able to justify it.

Ed Mathews 23:23

Yeah, they gotta, it's gotta be worth finding their car keys to hop in the car and go check it out. Right?

Brandon Cobb 23:27

Yeah.

Ed Mathews 23:27

Yeah. And so you mentioned investors earlier. What's the capital stack look like?

Brandon Cobb 24:02

Yeah, so if we're doing a land entitlement deal, we put it under contract. So we control the land through a contract, give us plenty of time that we need. We only close on it if. We get the approvals, so that's very important. That's one of the biggest mistakes that I made which is buying land thinking we can get the approval and then not getting it. And then, you know, being stuck with a piece of land that you can't develop. So don't make that mistake. That's, that's rule number one. Don't buy any land until you can get all the approvals. The only exception to that is obviously if you can buy it for its current value, have it completely fail, and turn around and just resell it and get your money back. Do that deal right? Asymmetric returns. So for that type of deal we bring investors in after the preliminary plat or tentative map approval, right? Like we gotta get that approval first because if we're using their money for stuff and it falls and doesn't get approved, well shoot, you know, you lost some money. And it typically doesn't cost us a lot of money anyway to get to that tentative map approval. So we use all of our own money for the tentative map once we introduce investors. You know, we typically aim for an 18% preferred return. That's what we've done in the past. So you know, we shoot to give'em an 18% preferred return on their money. Typical turnaround time. These contracts are 18 months and less so most of the time it's like a 15 month turnaround, so that's what we shoot for. And it's all their money, right? Like there's no debt introduced on the deal, nothing like that. So and it's just the investor's capital. If we are doing a land development project, so typically we will buy the land outright with I investor capital. So we own it outright with our investors, 100% equity, and we have created a lot of value at the same time. So when we take it from. Farm to 5,100 home community, it's worth a lot more money. And that's how we protect a lot of the investors' equity and their downside through the forced appreciation process. We then use that equity to go secure debt financing against the project, and we help protect that investment by getting a very large deposit from the National Home Builder. They'll go up to 20% deposit, released to US free money. Yeah. Oh yeah. No, it's, and we get to use it for the development, which is the beautiful thing because it's free money. There's no interest on it, nothing. So if we're doing a$10 million development, I can get up to a one to$2 million deposit from the builder. That significantly affects the amount of money I need to go to the private lender, the banks, to be able to get capital to do the project. So you know, investors, equity, it, you know, there's some significant protection there. A lot of times these loans that we're going out and getting, you know, they're like, you know, 50% loan to value when you account for the builder's deposit.

Ed Mathews 26:48

Yeah, and, and what kind of loans are those? Are you talking commercial paper or are you, are you dealing with local and regional banks and it's more of a construction loan type?

Brandon Cobb 26:59

We've done everything. So it's across the board. It's whoever is gonna give us the best deal. I'm more concerned about getting the terms we need than I am about the rate, and I'll tell you why. Back in 2022 when like the market changed and, you know, everything's great until the market changes, but you realize, you know, things happen. Banks can get bought out. You know, presidents can change hands and notes can call due. So some of the biggest risks when you're borrowing money is getting the note called due on you, that that is what you don't want. And so we mitigate that risk by, if it's a one and a half year project, I'm getting a three year. Term on that loan. I want double the amount of time I need and I wanna build in the ability to purchase extensions. I do not want that bank or whoever being able to call the note due on me. So that's a huge risk and how to mitigate that. And so you can do it by getting the terms whether you want with the banks, but if they're not able to do that, there's private lenders. That will do asset based lending that will give you those terms. They'll, they'll, you know, it's gonna be a higher, higher price. You know, we don't do personal guarantees, right? So don't we, we, we do all do non non-recourse lending. Like it's just a matter of time before something in the economy happens. And, you know, your deal goes south and you know, you have to file personal bankruptcy. So something happens. Like, so we don't, we don't do that. We, we learned that again back in 2022. You can have the best deal in the world, have high integrity. Stuff's gonna go wrong. And you know, at the end of the day, you need to be able to protect your personal assets. So that's what we look for when we're going out. And that's good for the investors' capital because if we are able to get the terms we need, if we do have a COVID event. Or a black swan interest rate rise. There's been a lot of crazy stuff in the last, you know, five years. That way we have the ability to not get like the note called due on us or buy us some extra time if the development is sitting for some reason. And again, having these large deposits from your buyer, like, you know, these are, these are huge deposits, this is a lot of money. It makes them have skin in the game and they're less likely to back out.

Ed Mathews 29:04

Right, right. Especially when they go hard day one, which is, I didn't even know that was a thing at that level, at least. So that's, that's pretty cool. All right, well, hey Brandon, I could talk about this stuff for days, man. But you know, let's get on with the the lightning round, the final five, and, and let's. Get a little more inside your head if you, if you'll indulge me.

Brandon Cobb 29:26

Let's do it, man. I'm ready.

Ed Mathews 29:27

All right. So, you know, I mean, you've been, I, I, I, like I said, I mean, I've known you for years and, and I know how successful you are. And you know, you've gotten to a point where the bills are paid, college tuition, you know, kids are good, wife's good, everybody's good. and nevertheless, you get in, you get in you wake up on Monday morning like a shot, and you go to the office and you, you keep working, right? So that tells me that there's purpose here. And so I'm curious about. Your purpose, what gets you outta bed on Monday morning?

Brandon Cobb 29:59

To me, business is a tool to build the life you want, and for me, my passion is creating unforgettable experiences with those that I love and I'm close to. So it's all about lifestyle design every single year. I do an annual sibling trip with my brother and sister. I've been doing it for almost 15 years At this point. We go somewhere on their bucket list, like we just got back from Yosemite. I got to hike a half dome this past fall. Like that was so flipping cool. We even got caught at night, so the moon was like s shining on half dome. So we typically will go to some national park and do some crazy hikes. Right? I do an annual mother, son trip. My mom was a history teacher for 30 years. She had never been to any of the places that she had taught about most of them. So every year I take her to like like we went to San Antonio and did the Alamo work doing the Freedom Trail in Boston this year. You know, I took her to St. Augustine and went, so like all these historic places we go every year and it's just fun when you are doing something that's not just a trip for a trip, but it's tied in some way, shape or form, you know, to the person that you care about. I do an annual father son trip. Right. My dad loves two things, crypto and bourbon. So like we did a crypto conference in Miami last year. The year before that, we did the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. So to me, life your business is something that is a tool to help you design the life you want. Which is so funny because so few people spend time actually designing the life and figuring out what they want it to look like to me, you know, you can't die with more money. You die with your experiences, you die with your memories. And the earlier on you can create that memory, the more. Dividends it'll pay throughout the entire life. So get those memories started earlier.'cause you know, I went to Europe when I was 25. I spent like 3,500 bucks and I had the most amazing experience ever. I, you know, I, I, I thought about it for many times and told the story if I did that same experience when I was 85 and I paid a million dollars to hire like a private yacht to. Take me to Europe and do the same thing, it wouldn't have the same effect. So the money has more value in the experience, the younger that you do it. So get out there and start creating experiences. That's that's what it's all been to me.

Ed Mathews 32:12

I love it. And you know, I know you've had many very ama or amazing mentors over the years, so I'm curious about the, the best advice you've ever gotten and who gave it to you.

Brandon Cobb 32:24

Oh man, the best advice that I've ever gotten that is a, oh my God, that is a loaded question. I had a I had a mentor who really changed my life, you know, his mindset around family. Getting more plugged in with my wife about what was going on with the business and actually running decisions by her. Instead of, she always was like, you know, you do your business, I don't wanna hear it. And I was like, okay, I'll just kind of keep it separate. But he really taught me that, hey, you need to lean on her to make better business decisions and opened up to her about things. And I always thought I didn't wanna bother my wife with the business stuff, but. That has allowed us to grow a lot closer together, and she's really helped me see things in business that I don't think I'd be able to see for myself. So that that's something that has come across my mind in the last year and a half.

Ed Mathews 33:19

Great advice because nine chances outta 10 is probably even better than that. Your wife's smarter than you anyway. I know my wife is smarter than me. So so, you know, having that outside perspective is invaluable. And, and also. Hear me out. I'm the old guy here. Right? Having your wife buy into what you're doing is so incredibly important. And it's also edifying so that when the bumps in the road do come, you can sit down and have those talks. And in a lot of cases, I find my wife, she's talking me down a little bit, right? It's gonna be fine. You know, we've seen this before. It's all good, right? And and so having that partner in life is really important. And that's sage advice. So also think that we, my own experience, I've learned more from the mistakes I've made than from the successes I've had. And so I'm curious about, like, as you look back on the last, you know, 10 plus years of, of your journey here in the real estate world. What's a decision that you, you know, you look back on and go, man, I should have seen that. I, I would love to have that decision back. Like, what's a mistake that you've made along the way that you, you'd like to revisit? not relive, but revisit.

Brandon Cobb 34:32

Yeah, we've done a lot with strategic partners, so these aren't people that are equity owners in our business, but we might've done like joint venture agreements or something where that partner, they don't own equity, but they're a big part of the success of the project, and I did not do a good job of vetting them better. Vetting their background vetting their skillset, making sure that they were the right fit. I got so tied up into what I was doing and how busy I was. I did not give the weight of that decision, the weight that I should have given it. And as a result, that wasn't a great partner. And, you know, the deals don't work out for whatever reason. And then now you got a a deal that you gotta go fix yourself. And so that, I'd say really vetting the strategic. Partners in your business and and in your life.

Ed Mathews 35:18

Yeah. Really, really good advice. So, so I'm also curious about how you take it, you know, a leader like yourself. I mean, you, you've got your business and, and I, I know for a fact that you're big on sharpening the saw as they say. So I'm curious about, you know, the book on your nightstand, virtual or otherwise, like, how do you take in information and what books and authors and creators are you paying attention to these days?

Brandon Cobb 35:43

It's gotta be something that really catches my attention. You know, that's the funny thing I used to read, just for the sake of reading. I can't do that anymore. I gotta be into what I'm reading. So I tend to really enjoy specific topics and kind of move on from one to a next. And so the topic that I've really been obsessed with right now. And bear with me is centered around spiritual growth and meditation. Now, I'm not gonna get all religious on you, right? That's not what this is. Believe it or not, spirituality has a lot to do with loving yourself. What's the relationship with yourself? Right? That's how I. Really see spirituality. When you start looking at it through that lens, what's your relationship with yourself? It becomes a little bit more to stomachs. People think spirituality, you know, what religion is he gonna say? I'm not talking about that at all. So there's somebody that really opened up my eyes to all of this, and his name's Michael Singer. I. For the life of me could not meditate for every time I tried it. You know, I've, I've, I grew up obsessed with self-help stuff, so I've read like all Tim Ferriss' stuff and like, you read all the self-help and meditation comes up time and time again and I'm like, all right, I'm gonna try to do it. Never could do it. I just couldn't sit still and do it. But Michael Singer changed my entire perception of it. And so the first time in my life, a few months ago, I actually started to be able to meditate. And the way he framed it was sitting there. And at first, just being aware of all the thoughts that come into your head. And I was like, I can do that. And so you're sitting there, you're sitting there with your eye closed, you're clo, you're controlling your breathing, you're trying to be aware of how you feel, and then you go, holy cow, there is this voice in my head that won't shut up. It is constantly talking to me. And when you just sit there and try to think about nothing, but you're being aware of all the thoughts that are going through your head, you're like, oh my God. It literally is. Another voice out there that like you don't control. And so that's, that's your mind, that's your brain. And what you learn is that you are not your thoughts. You're observing your thoughts. And so this is the, you know, I'm gonna get all pseudoscience on you right here. But this is your awareness, right? That's who you really are. You're the consciousness, you're the awareness that's observing your thoughts. So once you learn how to do this now, it becomes so much easier to have a relationship with yourself.'cause you can see. How you're talking to yourself throughout the day, you might catch something. And so our consciousness, that awareness that I was telling you about, experiences the world in three different ways. Number one is we see the world, we take it in, it goes to our brain. The second way is we have a thought about it, and then based on what we're thinking, it sends messages to the heart. The heart creates emotions around it. So if you can be a lot more aware of the thoughts that are getting triggered by what you see and hear in reality, you can control your emotions. AKA, this is where I think a lot of the business leaders that I hear about in like, you know, Tim Ferris's book, you know, tools of the Titans, they talk about meditation.'cause if you can help control or just be aware. Bring awareness to the thoughts you're having. You can prevent those thoughts from having the stress, the anxiety, or whatever negative emotions might be rule in your life, right? You, you don't let those emotions get to your you don't let the thoughts get to your heart. And so that, that is how I've tied meditation into spirituality and like managing the relationship with myself.'cause what a lot of people might realize is, you know, if that voice that I'm listening to inside my head were. Another person on the outside, I probably wouldn't be friends with'em. In fact, they might be an enemy.

Ed Mathews 39:18

Yeah, so

Brandon Cobb 39:20

So,

Ed Mathews 39:20

true. It's, that's profound. So, Michael Singer.

Brandon Cobb 39:26

Michael Singer. So he wrote a book called the Surrender Experiment. That's his story about him going through life and surrendering to the world and just saying, I'm gonna let life happen. I'm not gonna get straight. I'm just gonna go with the flow. It's a freaking cool story. I highly recommend everyone. Go li, it's a great listen. And then if you wanna know like how he practiced surrendering, you can go get his book The, my gosh, it is eluding me right now on the spot, but he's got another book. Go look it up. And the un, the Untethered Soul. There you go. The Untethered Soul.

Ed Mathews 40:02

Got it. Excellent. All right, man. So five. So how do you define success in your own life? Mm-hmm.

Brandon Cobb 40:10

Body being balanced in business and how I'm doing in those poor categories. So Bo Body's always gonna come. Number one, how healthy am I? What's my diet? Am I getting enough sleep? I'm. I'm probably a 10 outta 10. I make little tweaks here and there, but I'm in extremely good shape. I'm, I'm like a biohacking junkie. I do green smoothies every single day. I measure my sleep. I get my blood work done every single year for performance, not for health performance. And there are two different things to get your blood work done for.

Ed Mathews 40:36

indeed.

Brandon Cobb 40:37

I'm 10 outta 10 there. Body being. So this was probably where I was struggling the most.'cause I'd never been really spiritual and wanted to work on the relationship with myself. Like, you know, what is that voice telling me about myself in my head? So I kind of covered that a little bit. I measure that balance is the relationships that I have. So I'm doing pretty good here. My annual trips with my loved ones, time with my family. I'm off work every day, five 30 no matter what. And then you know, the last one's business and, you know, business is pretty easy. It's not just about the amount of money, but are you having fun while doing business? Somebody asked me that question years ago and it slapped me in the face.'cause I was like. I'm not having fun right now. What? I need to change something. So body being balanced in business, sitting down, having an honest conversation with yourself in those four categories and how you're doing.

Ed Mathews 41:26

Wonderful. Yeah, I had a a mentor. I had a similar experience. A mentor asked me, I had a consulting firm back in my technology days, and he's like, is this fun for you? I'm like. No, it's not fun. So it was time to, you know, sell out to my partners and go find something else to do, and I did. So it's it's a, it's, it's an interesting question to ask yourself though, or have someone ask you, because it's so important, you know, it, and it, it reminds me of an axiom that I, I've yet to meet or hear of somebody on their deathbed who wished they worked more. Right. That's never on the list. Anyway, so, when you're not talking about real estate I know you mentioned travel and spending the time with your loved ones. What else do you like to do for fun?

Brandon Cobb 42:11

Yeah, so I used to travel six weeks a year you know, until I, I had a kid, you know, so I've got a 16 month old

Ed Mathews 42:17

Yeah.

Brandon Cobb 42:18

I got another one due in July. So the travel thing's been kind of tough. Yeah, no. So had, had a kid.

Ed Mathews 42:23

Yeah.

Brandon Cobb 42:23

So right now, dude, I, I like hanging out with my family on the weekend, which is, which is crazy, you know, we can't travel a whole bunch. But you know, just literally just teaching him and getting to see him experience the world, like I can literally just sit there and just watch my kid and it's, and have fun with him. So it'd be, it's, it's a weird answer, but that's what I spend a lot of my time too. I, I'm a steak junkie too. I, like, I get my steaks imported from Japan and Australia, and I like to say, Hey, I'm cooking steak tonight. And everyone's like, woo. You know, like Brandon's cooking, you know, everyone wants to come over. So I'm a steak enthusiast big time. So I, but I, so I do that as well.

Ed Mathews 42:58

Excellent. Yeah, it's it's interesting. I have a, a, an uncle who he and his wife decided not to have kids over, you know, back in, in their day. And always, you know, he's, he owns cars and he restores cars and he's a boater and, you know, all these different hobbies. And he's like, what's your hobby? And I said, you see those two little girls running around in your backyard? Those are my hobbies. That's what I do. And it's the single greatest thing you can ever do.

Brandon Cobb 43:22

Agree.

Ed Mathews 43:23

So, so Brandon, if somebody wants to learn more about you or your business what's the best way to do that?

Brandon Cobb 43:32

Yeah, there's two people that we serve. The first are those that wanna learn how to do what we do, and the second are investors that, you know, want to invest in stuff like this. So for those that wanna learn. Land development. If you're a builder trying to scale the number of homes that you're building, if you are maybe a land flipper and you're ready to go from subdivides to doing some bigger stuff, or you just wanna get into development, you can go to learn land development.com. So there's a free course for land development 1 0 1. You can go take it, grab it. It's like eight hours of content. I got interviews with civil engineers, private equity groups how to raise capital for your deal. Like it's, it's a ton of content. It's designed to help you get started. So it's free if you like the idea. Of being a part of a community of people that are doing these land development deals. And you like the idea of somebody holding your hand through your first deal so you don't have to fumble around and figure it out. There's a video on that website. You can watch it. Again, go to learn land development.com and if you wanna book a call to see if you are a fit for the community, there's a little request invitation button there. That's one. The second, if you're an investor and you like the idea of investing in pre-sold land deals to big national builders if you want to add that to your portfolio and get passive income from it so that you can go to hbg capital.net/waitlist. That's pronounced Harry bob gary hbg capital.net/waitlist. That video explains our entire investment strategy and you can book a call to learn more. If you want our free ebook, just go to. HBG capital net. That's it. You can grab our freebie book. 100 Questions, business Owners Ask Before Investing. And if you like our content, we've got a YouTube channel you can go check it out. And we've got our own podcast, procession Resistant Real Estate Radio.

Ed Mathews 45:15

Excellent. Yeah, and I'm a, I'm an avid listener and an a obviously an avid follower. So, Brandon, it's good to see you, my friend. Congratulations on the mastermind on HBG and your pivot into land development and and everything else, and. Obviously congratulations on the, the coming of your second child. I didn't know that. That's great.

Brandon Cobb 45:36

Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Appreciate the opportunity.