In this episode of the Mailbox Money Show, Bronson uncovers the high-reward world of land development with Brandon Cobb. They break down the two-phase process: land entitlement (securing approvals for forced appreciation) and horizontal development (infrastructure like roads and utilities for ready-to-build lots). Brandon reveals how to mitigate risks via pre-sold contracts with national builders (e.g., Lennar, D.R. Horton), structure deals with 18% preferred returns and 65% LTC debt, and capitalize on current market freezes. From Tennessee’s cyclical opportunities to biohacking for peak performance (cold plunges, green smoothies, sleep optimization), discover why development offers multiple exits and legacy-building potential—perfect for diversifying beyond multifamily amid rising rates.
Brandon Cobb is the CEO of HBG Capital, a real estate development and investment firm specializing in single-family residential projects. With a background in homebuilding, he now focuses on land entitlement and horizontal development, creating shovel-ready lots for major builders.
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Full Transcript:
Bronson Hill: All right, welcome to the Mailbox Money Show. I’m your host, Bronson Hill, and I am very excited to be here.
We have a very special episode todayan amazing guest, Brandon Cobb, who does land development. Now, land development is something I’ve been interested in for quite a while because you take raw land and you’re able to entitle it either to build yourself or to sell it off in smaller pieces and he has done this very successfully for a long period of time.
And he also has a mastermind where he helps people do this as well. He is the CEO of HBG Capital, and they specialize in real estate development and investment and have done lots of different things within real estate.
So really excited to be talking. He’s also a biohacker. He’s just a great guy. We talked about some similar things we actually both have a background in medical device sales and so we swapped some war stories there about that, which was fun. But definitely great training for what we’re doing now.
So Brandon, really excited to see you, man. Nice to chat with you.
Brandon Cobb: Hey, man, the excitement’s all mine. Thanks for having me on.
Bronson Hill: For sure. So tell us about, you know we’ve had a couple over the years, some land acquisition people, flipping land or things like this but tell us a little bit about what you do and kind of how you found this. And, how is it kind of different than some of the other investments that you’ve done or that are out there?
Brandon Cobb: Yeah, so we’ve done quite a few across the real estate board. Anybody that’s been in real estate long enough realizes that, in a different cycle, certain sectors within the real estate sector tend to do really, really well. And it’s not like a one-size-fits-all pill.
We do what’s called development and development is a loaded word. Like, what is that? There are multiple phases to it. A lot of people think of the vertical construction as the key component of development, but there are actually two phases that come before actually building the homes, or building the multifamily, or building the commercial units.
The very first phase is taking a raw piece of land and just getting it approved for whatever it is. It could be a community, it could be commercial anything in real estate starts with the land, and you first have to get it approved. So we call that land entitlement.
And all we’re doing there and we can go into more of the specifics on what land entitlement is exactly but you just want to get it approved for whatever it is that you’re building. And when you do that, you force-appreciate the value of the land. When you take it from farmland to a 100-home community, it’s worth a lot more money.
And so that’s one of the value-add plays. How we force-appreciate the value is through that entitlement process. That’s phase one.
Phase two is what we call horizontal development. The word “development” is really more like horizontal construction. Building is when you’re going vertical. So this is when you’re putting the roads, the sewer, the infrastructure into place.
What we do is focus on single-family residential. We work with the Lennars and the D.R. Hortons to invent neighborhoods for first-time homebuyers. That’s our niche. That’s what we focus on.
So we’re creating lots that are ready to build a home. So imagine all the roads and everything are in the neighborhood there are just no homes and we sell those individual lots off to the builder, then they can go up.
So that’s the second phase, and there’s a second layer of forced appreciation when you do that. So that’s what I call the development part. And then you get the construction part which is when you’re actually going vertical.
So we’ve done all three. We used to build houses, that’s how we got into this. And we went from building, 20–30 houses a year to needing to really grow and scale that. And in order to grow and scale it, you need to focus on larger parcels of land.
Because a lot of builders will start out with infill. This is going after those lots that are kind of in neighborhoods, or you tear down a home in a neighborhood and you build one or two homes in its place. That’s called infill where you’re already in existing neighborhoods and you’re building within an existing neighborhood. So like, the sewer and stuff are already in place.
Bronson Hill: We’re doing the manufactured and the off-site built stuff yeah, that’s infill for the fire and stuff. But yeah, you’re doing, like, these are full new developments.
You know, you’re in Tennessee, are these in Tennessee as well, or are they elsewhere?
Brandon Cobb: Yeah, Tennessee. You know, we’ve done some stuff in other markets as well, but most of our business is done in Tennessee.
Bronson Hill: Gotcha. And of those three stages which one are you most focused on now? Which one are you most excited about?
Brandon Cobb: Yeah, right now with the way the market is, neighborhoods aren’t selling quite as fast, and builders are being less aggressive most of what we’re doing right now is land entitlement. That is where we put it under contract. We don’t buy it until we actually get all the approvals. That’s one of the ways we mitigate risk.
So we put it under contract, take it through the entitlement process, and once it’s been force-appreciated, then we do what’s called a double close, where we sell it. We already have our buyer lined up to buy it during our due diligence phase.
So we’ve got that B/C contract in place, we have an A/B contract with the seller, and all we’re doing is putting the money up to take it through that process when it’s pre-sold. That’s predominantly what we’re doing right now.
And then we’re doing a little bit of phase two development as well.
Bronson Hill: So you’re not doing as much of the final build. You’re doing more of the “buy the land, kind of entitle it,” and then some of the building out the infrastructure, the roads, and all that stuff. Is that right?
Brandon Cobb: Yeah, pre-sold contracts because right now, in our opinion, it’s just a little too risky to do spec homes. We had a lot going up until interest rates did what they did in ’22, you know that was a crazy event.
So it’s been a tough market for housing, as a lot of people have known. For that reason, we’re not building as much right now.
Bronson Hill: We’ve had that issue actually here too, you know we’re building out for the fires. And so, I went and became a dealer for manufactured modular homes, and we’ve done a lot of things we’ve raised over $50 million for different projects of different kinds. But one of the issues we’ve had now is, as we look at our all-in building cost, it’s very similar to what some of the older product is actually selling for.
So we’ve got to wait till the new construction comps come out so they can comp against the new stuff. So with development, it’s just tight it’s cyclical. There’s a timing to it.
You’ve got to get it right, and you don’t you know, you can be first, but you’re taking a risk when you go first. So if you know where you want to get to, that can be pretty powerful.
So, what kind of like, when someone invests in this kind of thing do you guys raise funds for this? What kind of returns generally should people expect in this kind of thing? Do some people do it themselves typically, or how does it work from the financial side?
Brandon Cobb: Yeah, there’s a bunch of different ways you can slice it, and depending on what stage of development you are, there are certain risks associated with it, and that’ll command a certain IRR.
But I’ll say I’ll explain how we structure things kind of along the way. That first phase that we do of the development, where we’re just doing land entitlement we’re putting it under contract, we’re controlling the land with a contract, we’ve got an end buyer lined up, and we raise capital for the entitlement cost.
So what are those? Those are mostly the civil drawings. So first, during our due diligence period, we want to make sure that it’s safe before we actually start raising capital and putting anybody’s money other than ours in it.
We make sure the land is safe via a few things. We might have to get a traffic study just to make sure that the city is going to give us a preliminary plat approval, right?
So that’s the goal we want to get the preliminary plat approval. Once we have that preliminary plat approval, it’s safe to raise funds for that project because we know the city has said yes, we want this contingent on seeing the design for it.
So that’s a big risk remover. We pay for the endangered species report, the Phase One environmental report. We want to make sure there’s no nuclear dumping site in the past or anything like that on it and then the geotech report, right, to check for sinkholes or any crazy rock that’s going to be expensive.
Once we get all that out, then we go and raise capital from investors, and it just depends on how big of a project it is, right?
You can get as big as you want. Some projects are thousands and thousands of units, and they’re literally building, like, a small city I’ve seen that.
Returns in that we do a straight 18 percent preferred return. That’s what we’ve always done in the past, and it’s worked out really well. But you can cut up the equity however you want with these things.
The other thing we do is we make sure that if we’re doing a land entitlement play, we’re controlling it with contracts we don’t actually own it. The deposit that we get from our end buyer, the builder, is enough to cover the capital needed to do the entitlements.
So, for example, if last minute the buyer backs out like it’s the day before closing and our builder buyer backs out, and, you know, we’re now going to renege on our contract and the seller could potentially walk away, the builder’s deposit at least covers how much capital we’ve raised.
That’s how we mitigate that biggest risk during the entitlement phase. A lot of people ask that question because that is your biggest risk because you don’t own the land. You know, how are you securing the investment?
It’s via that deposit that the builder has to cover and that’s in the event that they were to walk away last minute.
Bronson Hill: Yeah, gotcha. Okay, so 18 percent preferred, and then it’s usually no cash flow you just kind of catch that up at the end, right? Over there, along the deal, they kind of get paid out in the preferred. So they get paid first they get their 18 percent.
And I guess the biggest risk of this is just that somehow the market moves a bit, or the demand isn’t there, or something like that. Is that kind of some of the primary risks? Or that it takes longer than you expect, or things like that?
Brandon Cobb: Yeah, I mean, your biggest risk is your buyer backing out. All right? I mean, these are triple-A rated, Wall Street–funded builders, right? Everyone knows who Lennar is, D.R. Horton that’s who we’re working with. And they’re putting up very large deposits for this.
The thing is they have to build. They have to buy. They are publicly traded companies. They have to have their stock price go up, and the only way the stock price goes up is if they continue to buy land and build.
So that’s why we like working with them because they don’t have a plan B.
They have to increase every single year they don’t have a choice. So that’s the biggest risk right there.
The other and another way we kind of mitigate that is we’ll land bank it as well. If it’s a really good deal and we do have a buyer back out, we might go to investors and say, “Look, we need a little bit more capital to buy this thing.” And a lot of times, we’re buying the land with 100 percent investor equity.
So we don’t have any bank notes on the property there’s no debt. We can hold it with them indefinitely until either A, the market bounces back, or B, we get another really good offer.
We like the land-banking strategy when it’s an island in a sea of development. So all this development is happening around it, we’re waiting for the development to complete. We buy that piece of land after it’s approved, hold it for a year or two, and we get an additional bump in the forced appreciation because everything around it’s finished.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Bronson Hill: Okay, cool. So yeah, it sounds like there’s a lot you know, obviously you’ve done a lot in this space.
I mean, what kind of financing terms do you guys usually get for this? Is this all cash? Are you guys putting 20, 30 percent down? Or does it depend on the experience of the operator? I’m just curious kind of how it works on that side.
Brandon Cobb: Yeah, so for the land entitlement, we mostly work with just private investors. That’s it. It’s 100 percent equity partners we do the entitlements.
Again, it’s not a long-term hold here. We usually have our builder buyer lined up to buy it once it’s complete. So that’s 100 percent investor equity.
When you get to the development portion, now is when we would introduce debt. If we were going to develop this site, let’s say for D.R. Horton, now because we own the land outright with investors, we’ve got enough equity there to be able to submit for financing.
So typically, you’re not going to get better mechanics than, like, 65 percent loan-to-cost on a project. Not many people are doing LTV these days, just because the market’s really wonky. They usually want to make sure that you’ve got some skin in the game.
These types of loans are more focused on loan-to-cost, not necessarily loan-to-value. They’re still going to get an appraisal on it, and they’re probably not going to go over 65 percent loan-to-value. But that’s what we’re seeing on the debt side of things, you know, from local banks.
Now, you can go up to 80 percent loan-to-cost or loan-to-value, but you’re going to pay a lot more money, and you’re not going to be able to get it from banks. That’s going to be a private, hard-money source you’re probably going to pay 15 percent for something like that. It’s very, very expensive.
Now, one of the things that I love about this space is sometimes I don’t even have to go in raising capital that’s because the builder will give up to 20 percent of the purchase price as a deposit, released to us to actually do the development.
So, you know, we’ve got a builder right now that’s releasing an $800,000 deposit.
It’s free money to be used towards the development I don’t pay any money on it, there’s no interest. That’s a huge amount of the equity that’s needed to do the project.
So in many cases, we’re under 50 percent loan-to-value for a lot of our debt loans. Why is that important? Because as an investor, I always tell people you want to know how far the value of the asset needs to fall in order for your investment to break even.
Because if you’re an equity investor, you’re behind the bank’s note, right? You’re getting paid second, after the bank gets paid down.
And so, when you are doing these types of deals, and you’ve got that significant skin in the game from your builder large seven-figure deposits that are used towards the development combined with these very low loan-to-value projects, it makes the investors feel very safe.
Bronson Hill: Right, then, that’s a big deal, yeah. If people get over-leveraged, then they have issues. And so, I guess it depends; the duration kind of depends on how long it takes. But is this typically, like, a 12-month thing? I mean, obviously, the markets you’re working on, is it two years? What’s generally the timeframe to get something, you know, purchased, entitled, built out, and sold off?
Is it do you take a couple years?
Brandon Cobb: Yeah, so the entitlement portion that’s going to take 15 months or less in Tennessee. Now, you know, I tell people God bless people in New York and California because it’s a different ballgame over there, right? There’s a reason why we’re in Tennessee.
I was talking with some California developers, and they were complaining, and they’re like, “Yeah, it takes us three, four years here.” I was like, “Oh, I guess I should probably not complain.”
So that takes about 15 months. And then, to actually turn the dirt and put everything in we just finished 74 lots for a national home builder, and it took us just shy of a year to be able to do that.
So depending on how big your project is, if it’s 300 units, that’s probably, you know, a three-year project, depending on the absorption rates.
Bronson Hill: Yeah. Gotcha. Okay, cool. So I imagine there was a time that this was difficult to do like the last couple of years it’s changed a little bit.
Has it been challenging? Obviously, when rates were rising, it probably got more challenging to do this. Or is it getting better now? What’s kind of the timeline of this over the last several years?
Brandon Cobb: Yeah, it’s becoming more and more on everybody’s radar. I’ve seen so many people moving from the distress in the multifamily world, and what happened with all the bridge debt that came due and caused all the personal bankruptcies that everybody’s still licking their wounds from.
It’s become more popular, and the reason, I think, is one capital always needs a home, right?
It got difficult because builders started scaling back in 2022 to 2023. In other words, the market doesn’t like uncertainty. So while they still have to build, it doesn’t mean that they might expand they might just keep the number of units the same, right?
So they weren’t as aggressive on new acquisitions, and everybody kind of from the fall of 2022 to really the summer of 2023 nobody did anything. The market just completely froze.
But what happened was, when rates went up, you still need product, right? You still need housing. And so there was demand for it, and you kind of hit these pockets where they still needed to buy. Like I said it’s Wall Street.
They have only one strategy, and that is to build more. So they started to buy again after a year, but they were more hesitant to expand into new areas they weren’t as aggressive on it but they were still buying.
Now, recently, it’s created a really big opportunity, because what they did earlier this year is everybody started doing the same thing, which was, “Hey, we don’t want to self-develop. We want to have developers develop the land and sell us a lot.”
So you saw a lot of national homebuilders start scaling out a lot of the land that they had on their books, and they’re flipping it to developers to develop and sell the lots back to them. The reason they do that is it helps their IRR, and it keeps their balance sheet clean and low.
Bronson Hill: Yeah.
Brandon Cobb: That’s the big move that we’ve seen it’s created a huge opportunity. If you have the capital and expertise to deliver lots for them, those will sell like hotcakes.
Everybody wants finished, ready-to-go lots right now.
Bronson Hill: It’s interesting about land development. I have a friend who is 86 86 years old. This guy is super high net worth, I mean we’re talking $500 million, just really high net worth.
He said, in his lifetime, there’s been three times where they were just giving land away. He mentioned one time I think it was back in the early ’90s near San Antonio.
He got like 2,000 acres for, like, ten million dollars, and they sold it off over the next five to ten years. And they made it was like a 20x or 50x. I think it was more like a 20x. They just kept selling, and titling, and then titling, and titling they just kept selling it off and splitting it, selling it off. They made a ton of money on it.
It wasn’t a time when they had somebody doing the entitlements, but when you’re in titling and you’re doing anything, they build the infrastructure. They didn’t really do the development side of it like we’re talking about they just simply split it off and sold it.
And it’s kind of interesting when that happens, because, you know, people typically have to have quite a bit of cash. So in times like 2008, people didn’t have cash there was just less cash out there. But in some ways, it can be very, very lucrative.
So obviously, it sounds like this is something that people are starting to really see now, and see that it’s an opportunity if you have cash to be able to do that or to be able to kind of be a part of something like this.
Brandon Cobb: Yeah, that’s what we’re noticing more and more people are getting into it. It’s not as saturated as some of the other fields that are out there. That’s what we’ve noticed again.
We came in from building houses into this space because it was the natural progression. And you just don’t see as many people out there teaching it. That was one of the reasons why we started the mastermind program the Land Development Accelerator because nobody was out there teaching it, and we were like, “Man, there’s a huge need for this.”
You know, we wished that we had some community that we could lean on to learn this stuff and help us navigate it. I’ve got all the scars from all the mistakes that I’ve made over the years, and it’s just what I love about it.
You can do any type of real estate it doesn’t have to be single-family residential homes. You can do multifamily, commercial, storage units. Everything starts with the land. And I just haven’t come across many other niches in real estate where you can have three exit strategies: you can entitlement and sell the paper, develop and sell the lots, or actually build construct whatever building you’re wanting to do.
So there’s definitely some advantages to it that you don’t see in other real estate niches.
Bronson Hill: Yeah, we’re getting ready to do a land acquisition kind of development fund out of Kansas City, where there’s going to be quite a bit of options. Right you said that we can basically just get the land, we can entitle it, we can build some of it, we can sell some of it. There’s a lot of things you can do.
And of course, there’s a big need for warehouse and industrial-type stuff in that area specifically. But, you know, it’s amazing about real estate there are so many different things you can do, different ways to get involved with it, which is really great.
I wanted to ask you I really appreciate this, a lot, on the real estate conversation. I think anybody listening is going to get super valuable takeaways when it comes to land development. I think it’s just great to have diversity in your portfolio, have different types of things in your portfolio.
So I think you should definitely reach out to Brandon. Talk to us about biohacking it sounds like you’re also a biohacker.
I do some biohacking. I take, like, a bunch of supplements each day. I just got finished yesterday doing a race called High Rocks, which is like a Spartan race, but you do it inside you move heavy things. I woke up this morning, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, my body’s hurting today,” but I’m sure I’ll appreciate it later.
But I said, well, tell me about biohacking. What are the things that you’re interested in in that space?
Brandon Cobb: Hyrox, that’s pretty cool I’ll have to check that out. You know, it’s something I’ve been passionate about for a long time. Right? Because wealth is one thing, but being able to enjoy your life to the fullest that’s the whole reason we build wealth, right? That’s why everybody’s listening to this.
I have a friend who’s in his 40s who’s had a major health complication, and when you have something like that happen, you don’t have any other problems when you have health problems, everything else takes a backseat. So I take my health very, very seriously.
I do a lot of stuff, and it’s been a journey. But some of my favorite things that I’ll share with the audience have really changed my life. I’m used to eating the same things every single day, so when I introduce something new, I can tell whether it has an effect on me.
Years ago, one of the best things that I did for my diet was I introduced green smoothies. This is organic vegetables of some sort you know, don’t get too caught in the weeds of the ingredients but I do kale, I do carrots, I do a protein powder, I do some fruits that go in there, and then I do some collagen peptides.
So that’s like my green smoothie, and it just helps my digestive system.
It helps clean me out I get my vegetables in per day, my fruits and stuff. That alone has changed everything.
The other thing that I bought that changed my life is my cold plunge. That had some effects that I did not see coming. I suffered from brain fog sometimes, and I didn’t know what was causing it. Some days, I’d wake up groggy. But when you jump into a vat of 50-degree, freezing-cold water, everything disappears. You’re awake there’s no night.
You do not need a cup of coffee in the morning. Every cell in your body is alive, and my brain was firing immediately on all cylinders. That was one of the biggest life-changing things. I could just tell that my recoveries in the gym and everything else were so much better because of what was happening with that cold exposure.
Bronson Hill: I’m a huge cold plunger. I started doing this a few years ago. I have one at my house, and I keep it at 40 degrees. I usually do two to five minutes, a few days a week.
You know, it helps you sleep better, reduces inflammation, and as you get older, it really helps with recovery. And they actually use it. It’s interesting. People might think it sounds kind of crazy, but I’ve heard stories of people who’ve been on hard drugs, like cocaine, and they use the cold plunge to help overcome the addiction because it does something with your adrenaline it kind of resets you.
There’s something about it that a lot of people resist. They’re like, “I just don’t like cold,” but they say the people that get cold easily those who should do it because their body would actually be better off. We weren’t meant to live at 70 degrees Fahrenheit all the time.
But now I love the benefits. I’ll do a full plunge, a half plunge just the lower body and it’s just amazing. Today, I’ll definitely do a cold plunge because I’m so sore. I might do a sauna first and then a cold plunge. But yeah, definitely it’s great to be able to do it.
So I think that’s great. And you mentioned the supplements, the collagen, and all that stuff. Have you gotten into I guess there’s just a rabbit hole, right? You know, there’s the Don’t Die Brian. Oh yeah I’ve had a 100 sleep score for eight months in a row, which sounds crazy but every single little thing you can dial in.
Brandon Cobb: I love all of his stuff. He’s a wacko, but I love some of the stuff that he does. You know, he’s going to the extreme, but for example I read the book Why We Sleep, and I follow all the Brian Johnson stuff.
That book, Why We Sleep, was one of the best books, because working out used to be my number one working out was it. Then I changed my diet to being number one, and now it’s sleep.
Because sleep is the foundation of a healthy life your workouts are better, your mood is better. If somebody came out today a pharmaceutical company says, “We have a drug that you can take, a pill, you take it in the morning with water,” and suddenly you’re in a better mood all day, you have more energy…
There’s less stress, you can think 30 percent more clearly that would be the fastest, highest-selling drug on the market. And there are no side effects, and it makes you healthy. Everybody would be taking it.
And the thing is, it’s completely free. Everyone can do it. It’s called sleep.
I’ve got my Whoop I measure my sleep, I track things, and I’ve got an alarm to try to go to bed at the same time every single night. But I realized that time in bed doesn’t equate to sleep, and that’s why I got the Whoop for me. There’s a difference between “I’m going to bed at 10” and “I’m waking up at 6.”
Oh, I must have gotten eight hours of sleep. Well, I realized that I need an extra hour in bed if I’m going to get the actual amount of sleep that I want.
I was thinking eight hours in bed equals eight hours of sleep no, I need to be able to get nine hours in bed. So going to bed at, like, nine and waking up at six to get the eight hours of sleep that I needed.
But when I started consistently going to bed at the same time that was the key for me. Not an alarm to wake up in the morning, but an alarm to go to sleep at night.
And then completely blacking out the entire room you can hardly see your hand in front of your face. That helps my sleep as well.
And for those that use alarms, one of the worst ways to wake up is a startled alarm. You immediately start your day in stress. So the Whoop has an advocate to work a pneumatic alarm, or whatever, that’s a vibration so there’s no noise associated with it. It’s a very easy way to wake up.
The best way to start your day is with an easy wake-up in the morning, not something that startles and freaks you out.
So there’s a couple little things that I enjoy talking about.
Bronson Hill: That’s amazing. I have a whole morning routine it’s just amazing how you can kind of dial in every part of your life, how you go through life, and what you’re doing.
But I think, you know, how you go to bed, how you get up, your routines those things are super important.
So are you doing the blood tests for performance, like the Life Force stuff?
I have done that. I’ve done some of that, actually. What I started doing
This is kind of a little outside the box. I basically take my blood work, take my name off, and put it into ChatGPT. I say, “These are my goals: I want to increase testosterone, or if I lower one level, or something else I basically say, I want to change this.” And it will give me suggestions, like “Take these supplements,” or “Focus on this one,” or whatever.
I know a guy it’s helped me a lot. Literally, I had a time where, as an athlete, you know, an endurance athlete about 25 percent of endurance athletes have lower testosterone. I was fine, but it was kind of on the lower end of normal.
I basically did this, started a little heavy lifting, and it basically doubled within a couple of months. It was crazy it was insane.
I have a friend who was paying six thousand dollars a year to a nutrition consultant to help him, and he basically just started using ChatGPT, and he was getting as good or better results.
It’s so funny how we feel like a lot of stuff we need to pay for, but it’s all at our fingertips.
Brandon Cobb: That’s where it’s headed, man. That’s close you’re uploading the blood results to it and then asking.
Yeah, this is similar stuff, because what a lot of people don’t realize is those percentages that are on the back of foods and supplements the 100% vitamin B for the day, whatever that’s to prevent disease. It’s not designed to help you optimally perform.
There’s a difference in that. And I want to optimally perform mentally, physically, in everything that I do. That’s the difference, and that’s why you would want to do this.
A lot of people get that confused they think, “I just need to get 100% vitamin B or whatever in a day, and I’m all good.” Right?
If you want to perform, this is something that you need to do you’ve got to get your blood checked and tested.
Bronson Hill: Yeah, I know it’s really helpful. It’s helpful to be able to work on…
Well, Brandon, I really appreciate you, man. I appreciate you being on the show. I’m going to be on your show coming up here soon, and I’m looking forward to it.
I love the idea of land development because you actually are creating so much value for communities, for individuals, for builders. It’s all just creating it’s creating for people. And it really does in a way that’s different than a lot of people seem to realize.
A lot of people seem very intimidated by it, but you’ve created a way for passive investors to also join in. And with your mastermind, people can learn it and kind of do this themselves.
So what’s the best way for people to reach out, connect, and learn about what you’re doing?
Brandon Cobb: Yeah, so we serve two types of people. There’s the investors if they want to invest, we’ve got them covered. And then there’s the people who actually want to learn how to do what we do learn land development.
If you’re somebody that wants to learn how to do it and doesn’t like the idea of making all the mistakes and figuring it out on your own, and you want a clear path without all the trial and error, go to learnlanddevelopment.com. There’s a free course under the video. If you want to learn about the mastermind, there’s a video for that as well. But the free course underneath is called Land Development 101 it’s designed to help you get started.
I’ve got interviews there with council people, national land developers, and national builders you can hear it from their side. There’s over six hours of content on how to get started in land development and how to raise the capital for your deals, so you can go there and grab it.
If you’re an investor and you’re trying to build a legacy, make an impact, and create financial independence, and you like the idea of adding something like this to your portfolio, you can go to HBGCapital.net/ waitlist. That’s HBGCapital.net the website and you can do forward slash waitlist to watch the video.
On HBGCapital.net, there’s also a free e-book that we give away called 100 Questions Business Owners Ask Before Investing, and you can grab that free e-book. The reason we give that away is a lot of people are new to the space and don’t know what questions to ask to make sure it’s a good sponsor or a good opportunity. That book will help you out, so you can grab it.
Bronson Hill: Awesome. Well, hey, I appreciate you, Brandon. Thanks again for being here.
And to our audience, I hope you are taking the time to really learn about these new assets that we’re talking about, right?
I’m really big on land development. We’re doing some of this, we’re also starting to develop homes here in Altadena. But if you’re paying attention to what’s happening, there are always going to be new opportunities that come out.
I just hope that you’re continuing to learn and grow. There are times when being a multifamily investor makes a lot of sense, and there are times when it’s challenging. Certain assets will make sense at certain times, and it’s that whole Warren Buffett idea: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.
If you’re able to look at things independently, find what’s out of favor, and move toward that, you can actually do very well over time as long as you manage the risks and understand what’s happening in that asset.
I really appreciate you being here, Brandon, and thanks for joining the Mailbox Money Show. We look forward to seeing you guys on the next episode.
Brandon Cobb – The Secret to Land Development
Bronson Hill: All right, welcome to the Mailbox Money Show. I’m your host, Bronson Hill, and I am very excited to be here.
We have a very special episode todayan amazing guest, Brandon Cobb, who does land development. Now, land development is something I’ve been interested in for quite a while because you take raw land and you’re able to entitle it either to build yourself or to sell it off in smaller pieces and he has done this very successfully for a long period of time.
And he also has a mastermind where he helps people do this as well. He is the CEO of HBG Capital, and they specialize in real estate development and investment and have done lots of different things within real estate.
So really excited to be talking. He’s also a biohacker. He’s just a great guy. We talked about some similar things we actually both have a background in medical device sales and so we swapped some war stories there about that, which was fun. But definitely great training for what we’re doing now.
So Brandon, really excited to see you, man. Nice to chat with you.
Brandon Cobb: Hey, man, the excitement’s all mine. Thanks for having me on.
Bronson Hill: For sure. So tell us about, you know we’ve had a couple over the years, some land acquisition people, flipping land or things like this but tell us a little bit about what you do and kind of how you found this. And, how is it kind of different than some of the other investments that you’ve done or that are out there?
Brandon Cobb: Yeah, so we’ve done quite a few across the real estate board. Anybody that’s been in real estate long enough realizes that, in a different cycle, certain sectors within the real estate sector tend to do really, really well. And it’s not like a one-size-fits-all pill.
We do what’s called development and development is a loaded word. Like, what is that? There are multiple phases to it. A lot of people think of the vertical construction as the key component of development, but there are actually two phases that come before actually building the homes, or building the multifamily, or building the commercial units.
The very first phase is taking a raw piece of land and just getting it approved for whatever it is. It could be a community, it could be commercial anything in real estate starts with the land, and you first have to get it approved. So we call that land entitlement.
And all we’re doing there and we can go into more of the specifics on what land entitlement is exactly but you just want to get it approved for whatever it is that you’re building. And when you do that, you force-appreciate the value of the land. When you take it from farmland to a 100-home community, it’s worth a lot more money.
And so that’s one of the value-add plays. How we force-appreciate the value is through that entitlement process. That’s phase one.
Phase two is what we call horizontal development. The word “development” is really more like horizontal construction. Building is when you’re going vertical. So this is when you’re putting the roads, the sewer, the infrastructure into place.
What we do is focus on single-family residential. We work with the Lennars and the D.R. Hortons to invent neighborhoods for first-time homebuyers. That’s our niche. That’s what we focus on.
So we’re creating lots that are ready to build a home. So imagine all the roads and everything are in the neighborhood there are just no homes and we sell those individual lots off to the builder, then they can go up.
So that’s the second phase, and there’s a second layer of forced appreciation when you do that. So that’s what I call the development part. And then you get the construction part which is when you’re actually going vertical.
So we’ve done all three. We used to build houses, that’s how we got into this. And we went from building, 20–30 houses a year to needing to really grow and scale that. And in order to grow and scale it, you need to focus on larger parcels of land.
Because a lot of builders will start out with infill. This is going after those lots that are kind of in neighborhoods, or you tear down a home in a neighborhood and you build one or two homes in its place. That’s called infill where you’re already in existing neighborhoods and you’re building within an existing neighborhood. So like, the sewer and stuff are already in place.
Bronson Hill: We’re doing the manufactured and the off-site built stuff yeah, that’s infill for the fire and stuff. But yeah, you’re doing, like, these are full new developments.
You know, you’re in Tennessee, are these in Tennessee as well, or are they elsewhere?
Brandon Cobb: Yeah, Tennessee. You know, we’ve done some stuff in other markets as well, but most of our business is done in Tennessee.
Bronson Hill: Gotcha. And of those three stages which one are you most focused on now? Which one are you most excited about?
Brandon Cobb: Yeah, right now with the way the market is, neighborhoods aren’t selling quite as fast, and builders are being less aggressive most of what we’re doing right now is land entitlement. That is where we put it under contract. We don’t buy it until we actually get all the approvals. That’s one of the ways we mitigate risk.
So we put it under contract, take it through the entitlement process, and once it’s been force-appreciated, then we do what’s called a double close, where we sell it. We already have our buyer lined up to buy it during our due diligence phase.
So we’ve got that B/C contract in place, we have an A/B contract with the seller, and all we’re doing is putting the money up to take it through that process when it’s pre-sold. That’s predominantly what we’re doing right now.
And then we’re doing a little bit of phase two development as well.
Bronson Hill: So you’re not doing as much of the final build. You’re doing more of the “buy the land, kind of entitle it,” and then some of the building out the infrastructure, the roads, and all that stuff. Is that right?
Brandon Cobb: Yeah, pre-sold contracts because right now, in our opinion, it’s just a little too risky to do spec homes. We had a lot going up until interest rates did what they did in ’22, you know that was a crazy event.
So it’s been a tough market for housing, as a lot of people have known. For that reason, we’re not building as much right now.
Bronson Hill: We’ve had that issue actually here too, you know we’re building out for the fires. And so, I went and became a dealer for manufactured modular homes, and we’ve done a lot of things we’ve raised over $50 million for different projects of different kinds. But one of the issues we’ve had now is, as we look at our all-in building cost, it’s very similar to what some of the older product is actually selling for.
So we’ve got to wait till the new construction comps come out so they can comp against the new stuff. So with development, it’s just tight it’s cyclical. There’s a timing to it.
You’ve got to get it right, and you don’t you know, you can be first, but you’re taking a risk when you go first. So if you know where you want to get to, that can be pretty powerful.
So, what kind of like, when someone invests in this kind of thing do you guys raise funds for this? What kind of returns generally should people expect in this kind of thing? Do some people do it themselves typically, or how does it work from the financial side?
Brandon Cobb: Yeah, there’s a bunch of different ways you can slice it, and depending on what stage of development you are, there are certain risks associated with it, and that’ll command a certain IRR.
But I’ll say I’ll explain how we structure things kind of along the way. That first phase that we do of the development, where we’re just doing land entitlement we’re putting it under contract, we’re controlling the land with a contract, we’ve got an end buyer lined up, and we raise capital for the entitlement cost.
So what are those? Those are mostly the civil drawings. So first, during our due diligence period, we want to make sure that it’s safe before we actually start raising capital and putting anybody’s money other than ours in it.
We make sure the land is safe via a few things. We might have to get a traffic study just to make sure that the city is going to give us a preliminary plat approval, right?
So that’s the goal we want to get the preliminary plat approval. Once we have that preliminary plat approval, it’s safe to raise funds for that project because we know the city has said yes, we want this contingent on seeing the design for it.
So that’s a big risk remover. We pay for the endangered species report, the Phase One environmental report. We want to make sure there’s no nuclear dumping site in the past or anything like that on it and then the geotech report, right, to check for sinkholes or any crazy rock that’s going to be expensive.
Once we get all that out, then we go and raise capital from investors, and it just depends on how big of a project it is, right?
You can get as big as you want. Some projects are thousands and thousands of units, and they’re literally building, like, a small city I’ve seen that.
Returns in that we do a straight 18 percent preferred return. That’s what we’ve always done in the past, and it’s worked out really well. But you can cut up the equity however you want with these things.
The other thing we do is we make sure that if we’re doing a land entitlement play, we’re controlling it with contracts we don’t actually own it. The deposit that we get from our end buyer, the builder, is enough to cover the capital needed to do the entitlements.
So, for example, if last minute the buyer backs out like it’s the day before closing and our builder buyer backs out, and, you know, we’re now going to renege on our contract and the seller could potentially walk away, the builder’s deposit at least covers how much capital we’ve raised.
That’s how we mitigate that biggest risk during the entitlement phase. A lot of people ask that question because that is your biggest risk because you don’t own the land. You know, how are you securing the investment?
It’s via that deposit that the builder has to cover and that’s in the event that they were to walk away last minute.
Bronson Hill: Yeah, gotcha. Okay, so 18 percent preferred, and then it’s usually no cash flow you just kind of catch that up at the end, right? Over there, along the deal, they kind of get paid out in the preferred. So they get paid first they get their 18 percent.
And I guess the biggest risk of this is just that somehow the market moves a bit, or the demand isn’t there, or something like that. Is that kind of some of the primary risks? Or that it takes longer than you expect, or things like that?
Brandon Cobb: Yeah, I mean, your biggest risk is your buyer backing out. All right? I mean, these are triple-A rated, Wall Street–funded builders, right? Everyone knows who Lennar is, D.R. Horton that’s who we’re working with. And they’re putting up very large deposits for this.
The thing is they have to build. They have to buy. They are publicly traded companies. They have to have their stock price go up, and the only way the stock price goes up is if they continue to buy land and build.
So that’s why we like working with them because they don’t have a plan B.
They have to increase every single year they don’t have a choice. So that’s the biggest risk right there.
The other and another way we kind of mitigate that is we’ll land bank it as well. If it’s a really good deal and we do have a buyer back out, we might go to investors and say, “Look, we need a little bit more capital to buy this thing.” And a lot of times, we’re buying the land with 100 percent investor equity.
So we don’t have any bank notes on the property there’s no debt. We can hold it with them indefinitely until either A, the market bounces back, or B, we get another really good offer.
We like the land-banking strategy when it’s an island in a sea of development. So all this development is happening around it, we’re waiting for the development to complete. We buy that piece of land after it’s approved, hold it for a year or two, and we get an additional bump in the forced appreciation because everything around it’s finished.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Bronson Hill: Okay, cool. So yeah, it sounds like there’s a lot you know, obviously you’ve done a lot in this space.
I mean, what kind of financing terms do you guys usually get for this? Is this all cash? Are you guys putting 20, 30 percent down? Or does it depend on the experience of the operator? I’m just curious kind of how it works on that side.
Brandon Cobb: Yeah, so for the land entitlement, we mostly work with just private investors. That’s it. It’s 100 percent equity partners we do the entitlements.
Again, it’s not a long-term hold here. We usually have our builder buyer lined up to buy it once it’s complete. So that’s 100 percent investor equity.
When you get to the development portion, now is when we would introduce debt. If we were going to develop this site, let’s say for D.R. Horton, now because we own the land outright with investors, we’ve got enough equity there to be able to submit for financing.
So typically, you’re not going to get better mechanics than, like, 65 percent loan-to-cost on a project. Not many people are doing LTV these days, just because the market’s really wonky. They usually want to make sure that you’ve got some skin in the game.
These types of loans are more focused on loan-to-cost, not necessarily loan-to-value. They’re still going to get an appraisal on it, and they’re probably not going to go over 65 percent loan-to-value. But that’s what we’re seeing on the debt side of things, you know, from local banks.
Now, you can go up to 80 percent loan-to-cost or loan-to-value, but you’re going to pay a lot more money, and you’re not going to be able to get it from banks. That’s going to be a private, hard-money source you’re probably going to pay 15 percent for something like that. It’s very, very expensive.
Now, one of the things that I love about this space is sometimes I don’t even have to go in raising capital that’s because the builder will give up to 20 percent of the purchase price as a deposit, released to us to actually do the development.
So, you know, we’ve got a builder right now that’s releasing an $800,000 deposit.
It’s free money to be used towards the development I don’t pay any money on it, there’s no interest. That’s a huge amount of the equity that’s needed to do the project.
So in many cases, we’re under 50 percent loan-to-value for a lot of our debt loans. Why is that important? Because as an investor, I always tell people you want to know how far the value of the asset needs to fall in order for your investment to break even.
Because if you’re an equity investor, you’re behind the bank’s note, right? You’re getting paid second, after the bank gets paid down.
And so, when you are doing these types of deals, and you’ve got that significant skin in the game from your builder large seven-figure deposits that are used towards the development combined with these very low loan-to-value projects, it makes the investors feel very safe.
Bronson Hill: Right, then, that’s a big deal, yeah. If people get over-leveraged, then they have issues. And so, I guess it depends; the duration kind of depends on how long it takes. But is this typically, like, a 12-month thing? I mean, obviously, the markets you’re working on, is it two years? What’s generally the timeframe to get something, you know, purchased, entitled, built out, and sold off?
Is it do you take a couple years?
Brandon Cobb: Yeah, so the entitlement portion that’s going to take 15 months or less in Tennessee. Now, you know, I tell people God bless people in New York and California because it’s a different ballgame over there, right? There’s a reason why we’re in Tennessee.
I was talking with some California developers, and they were complaining, and they’re like, “Yeah, it takes us three, four years here.” I was like, “Oh, I guess I should probably not complain.”
So that takes about 15 months. And then, to actually turn the dirt and put everything in we just finished 74 lots for a national home builder, and it took us just shy of a year to be able to do that.
So depending on how big your project is, if it’s 300 units, that’s probably, you know, a three-year project, depending on the absorption rates.
Bronson Hill: Yeah. Gotcha. Okay, cool. So I imagine there was a time that this was difficult to do like the last couple of years it’s changed a little bit.
Has it been challenging? Obviously, when rates were rising, it probably got more challenging to do this. Or is it getting better now? What’s kind of the timeline of this over the last several years?
Brandon Cobb: Yeah, it’s becoming more and more on everybody’s radar. I’ve seen so many people moving from the distress in the multifamily world, and what happened with all the bridge debt that came due and caused all the personal bankruptcies that everybody’s still licking their wounds from.
It’s become more popular, and the reason, I think, is one capital always needs a home, right?
It got difficult because builders started scaling back in 2022 to 2023. In other words, the market doesn’t like uncertainty. So while they still have to build, it doesn’t mean that they might expand they might just keep the number of units the same, right?
So they weren’t as aggressive on new acquisitions, and everybody kind of from the fall of 2022 to really the summer of 2023 nobody did anything. The market just completely froze.
But what happened was, when rates went up, you still need product, right? You still need housing. And so there was demand for it, and you kind of hit these pockets where they still needed to buy. Like I said it’s Wall Street.
They have only one strategy, and that is to build more. So they started to buy again after a year, but they were more hesitant to expand into new areas they weren’t as aggressive on it but they were still buying.
Now, recently, it’s created a really big opportunity, because what they did earlier this year is everybody started doing the same thing, which was, “Hey, we don’t want to self-develop. We want to have developers develop the land and sell us a lot.”
So you saw a lot of national homebuilders start scaling out a lot of the land that they had on their books, and they’re flipping it to developers to develop and sell the lots back to them. The reason they do that is it helps their IRR, and it keeps their balance sheet clean and low.
Bronson Hill: Yeah.
Brandon Cobb: That’s the big move that we’ve seen it’s created a huge opportunity. If you have the capital and expertise to deliver lots for them, those will sell like hotcakes.
Everybody wants finished, ready-to-go lots right now.
Bronson Hill: It’s interesting about land development. I have a friend who is 86 86 years old. This guy is super high net worth, I mean we’re talking $500 million, just really high net worth.
He said, in his lifetime, there’s been three times where they were just giving land away. He mentioned one time I think it was back in the early ’90s near San Antonio.
He got like 2,000 acres for, like, ten million dollars, and they sold it off over the next five to ten years. And they made it was like a 20x or 50x. I think it was more like a 20x. They just kept selling, and titling, and then titling, and titling they just kept selling it off and splitting it, selling it off. They made a ton of money on it.
It wasn’t a time when they had somebody doing the entitlements, but when you’re in titling and you’re doing anything, they build the infrastructure. They didn’t really do the development side of it like we’re talking about they just simply split it off and sold it.
And it’s kind of interesting when that happens, because, you know, people typically have to have quite a bit of cash. So in times like 2008, people didn’t have cash there was just less cash out there. But in some ways, it can be very, very lucrative.
So obviously, it sounds like this is something that people are starting to really see now, and see that it’s an opportunity if you have cash to be able to do that or to be able to kind of be a part of something like this.
Brandon Cobb: Yeah, that’s what we’re noticing more and more people are getting into it. It’s not as saturated as some of the other fields that are out there. That’s what we’ve noticed again.
We came in from building houses into this space because it was the natural progression. And you just don’t see as many people out there teaching it. That was one of the reasons why we started the mastermind program the Land Development Accelerator because nobody was out there teaching it, and we were like, “Man, there’s a huge need for this.”
You know, we wished that we had some community that we could lean on to learn this stuff and help us navigate it. I’ve got all the scars from all the mistakes that I’ve made over the years, and it’s just what I love about it.
You can do any type of real estate it doesn’t have to be single-family residential homes. You can do multifamily, commercial, storage units. Everything starts with the land. And I just haven’t come across many other niches in real estate where you can have three exit strategies: you can entitlement and sell the paper, develop and sell the lots, or actually build construct whatever building you’re wanting to do.
So there’s definitely some advantages to it that you don’t see in other real estate niches.
Bronson Hill: Yeah, we’re getting ready to do a land acquisition kind of development fund out of Kansas City, where there’s going to be quite a bit of options. Right you said that we can basically just get the land, we can entitle it, we can build some of it, we can sell some of it. There’s a lot of things you can do.
And of course, there’s a big need for warehouse and industrial-type stuff in that area specifically. But, you know, it’s amazing about real estate there are so many different things you can do, different ways to get involved with it, which is really great.
I wanted to ask you I really appreciate this, a lot, on the real estate conversation. I think anybody listening is going to get super valuable takeaways when it comes to land development. I think it’s just great to have diversity in your portfolio, have different types of things in your portfolio.
So I think you should definitely reach out to Brandon. Talk to us about biohacking it sounds like you’re also a biohacker.
I do some biohacking. I take, like, a bunch of supplements each day. I just got finished yesterday doing a race called High Rocks, which is like a Spartan race, but you do it inside you move heavy things. I woke up this morning, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, my body’s hurting today,” but I’m sure I’ll appreciate it later.
But I said, well, tell me about biohacking. What are the things that you’re interested in in that space?
Brandon Cobb: Hyrox, that’s pretty cool I’ll have to check that out. You know, it’s something I’ve been passionate about for a long time. Right? Because wealth is one thing, but being able to enjoy your life to the fullest that’s the whole reason we build wealth, right? That’s why everybody’s listening to this.
I have a friend who’s in his 40s who’s had a major health complication, and when you have something like that happen, you don’t have any other problems when you have health problems, everything else takes a backseat. So I take my health very, very seriously.
I do a lot of stuff, and it’s been a journey. But some of my favorite things that I’ll share with the audience have really changed my life. I’m used to eating the same things every single day, so when I introduce something new, I can tell whether it has an effect on me.
Years ago, one of the best things that I did for my diet was I introduced green smoothies. This is organic vegetables of some sort you know, don’t get too caught in the weeds of the ingredients but I do kale, I do carrots, I do a protein powder, I do some fruits that go in there, and then I do some collagen peptides.
So that’s like my green smoothie, and it just helps my digestive system.
It helps clean me out I get my vegetables in per day, my fruits and stuff. That alone has changed everything.
The other thing that I bought that changed my life is my cold plunge. That had some effects that I did not see coming. I suffered from brain fog sometimes, and I didn’t know what was causing it. Some days, I’d wake up groggy. But when you jump into a vat of 50-degree, freezing-cold water, everything disappears. You’re awake there’s no night.
You do not need a cup of coffee in the morning. Every cell in your body is alive, and my brain was firing immediately on all cylinders. That was one of the biggest life-changing things. I could just tell that my recoveries in the gym and everything else were so much better because of what was happening with that cold exposure.
Bronson Hill: I’m a huge cold plunger. I started doing this a few years ago. I have one at my house, and I keep it at 40 degrees. I usually do two to five minutes, a few days a week.
You know, it helps you sleep better, reduces inflammation, and as you get older, it really helps with recovery. And they actually use it. It’s interesting. People might think it sounds kind of crazy, but I’ve heard stories of people who’ve been on hard drugs, like cocaine, and they use the cold plunge to help overcome the addiction because it does something with your adrenaline it kind of resets you.
There’s something about it that a lot of people resist. They’re like, “I just don’t like cold,” but they say the people that get cold easily those who should do it because their body would actually be better off. We weren’t meant to live at 70 degrees Fahrenheit all the time.
But now I love the benefits. I’ll do a full plunge, a half plunge just the lower body and it’s just amazing. Today, I’ll definitely do a cold plunge because I’m so sore. I might do a sauna first and then a cold plunge. But yeah, definitely it’s great to be able to do it.
So I think that’s great. And you mentioned the supplements, the collagen, and all that stuff. Have you gotten into I guess there’s just a rabbit hole, right? You know, there’s the Don’t Die Brian. Oh yeah I’ve had a 100 sleep score for eight months in a row, which sounds crazy but every single little thing you can dial in.
Brandon Cobb: I love all of his stuff. He’s a wacko, but I love some of the stuff that he does. You know, he’s going to the extreme, but for example I read the book Why We Sleep, and I follow all the Brian Johnson stuff.
That book, Why We Sleep, was one of the best books, because working out used to be my number one working out was it. Then I changed my diet to being number one, and now it’s sleep.
Because sleep is the foundation of a healthy life your workouts are better, your mood is better. If somebody came out today a pharmaceutical company says, “We have a drug that you can take, a pill, you take it in the morning with water,” and suddenly you’re in a better mood all day, you have more energy…
There’s less stress, you can think 30 percent more clearly that would be the fastest, highest-selling drug on the market. And there are no side effects, and it makes you healthy. Everybody would be taking it.
And the thing is, it’s completely free. Everyone can do it. It’s called sleep.
I’ve got my Whoop I measure my sleep, I track things, and I’ve got an alarm to try to go to bed at the same time every single night. But I realized that time in bed doesn’t equate to sleep, and that’s why I got the Whoop for me. There’s a difference between “I’m going to bed at 10” and “I’m waking up at 6.”
Oh, I must have gotten eight hours of sleep. Well, I realized that I need an extra hour in bed if I’m going to get the actual amount of sleep that I want.
I was thinking eight hours in bed equals eight hours of sleep no, I need to be able to get nine hours in bed. So going to bed at, like, nine and waking up at six to get the eight hours of sleep that I needed.
But when I started consistently going to bed at the same time that was the key for me. Not an alarm to wake up in the morning, but an alarm to go to sleep at night.
And then completely blacking out the entire room you can hardly see your hand in front of your face. That helps my sleep as well.
And for those that use alarms, one of the worst ways to wake up is a startled alarm. You immediately start your day in stress. So the Whoop has an advocate to work a pneumatic alarm, or whatever, that’s a vibration so there’s no noise associated with it. It’s a very easy way to wake up.
The best way to start your day is with an easy wake-up in the morning, not something that startles and freaks you out.
So there’s a couple little things that I enjoy talking about.
Bronson Hill: That’s amazing. I have a whole morning routine it’s just amazing how you can kind of dial in every part of your life, how you go through life, and what you’re doing.
But I think, you know, how you go to bed, how you get up, your routines those things are super important.
So are you doing the blood tests for performance, like the Life Force stuff?
I have done that. I’ve done some of that, actually. What I started doing
This is kind of a little outside the box. I basically take my blood work, take my name off, and put it into ChatGPT. I say, “These are my goals: I want to increase testosterone, or if I lower one level, or something else I basically say, I want to change this.” And it will give me suggestions, like “Take these supplements,” or “Focus on this one,” or whatever.
I know a guy it’s helped me a lot. Literally, I had a time where, as an athlete, you know, an endurance athlete about 25 percent of endurance athletes have lower testosterone. I was fine, but it was kind of on the lower end of normal.
I basically did this, started a little heavy lifting, and it basically doubled within a couple of months. It was crazy it was insane.
I have a friend who was paying six thousand dollars a year to a nutrition consultant to help him, and he basically just started using ChatGPT, and he was getting as good or better results.
It’s so funny how we feel like a lot of stuff we need to pay for, but it’s all at our fingertips.
Brandon Cobb: That’s where it’s headed, man. That’s close you’re uploading the blood results to it and then asking.
Yeah, this is similar stuff, because what a lot of people don’t realize is those percentages that are on the back of foods and supplements the 100% vitamin B for the day, whatever that’s to prevent disease. It’s not designed to help you optimally perform.
There’s a difference in that. And I want to optimally perform mentally, physically, in everything that I do. That’s the difference, and that’s why you would want to do this.
A lot of people get that confused they think, “I just need to get 100% vitamin B or whatever in a day, and I’m all good.” Right?
If you want to perform, this is something that you need to do you’ve got to get your blood checked and tested.
Bronson Hill: Yeah, I know it’s really helpful. It’s helpful to be able to work on…
Well, Brandon, I really appreciate you, man. I appreciate you being on the show. I’m going to be on your show coming up here soon, and I’m looking forward to it.
I love the idea of land development because you actually are creating so much value for communities, for individuals, for builders. It’s all just creating it’s creating for people. And it really does in a way that’s different than a lot of people seem to realize.
A lot of people seem very intimidated by it, but you’ve created a way for passive investors to also join in. And with your mastermind, people can learn it and kind of do this themselves.
So what’s the best way for people to reach out, connect, and learn about what you’re doing?
Brandon Cobb: Yeah, so we serve two types of people. There’s the investors if they want to invest, we’ve got them covered. And then there’s the people who actually want to learn how to do what we do learn land development.
If you’re somebody that wants to learn how to do it and doesn’t like the idea of making all the mistakes and figuring it out on your own, and you want a clear path without all the trial and error, go to learnlanddevelopment.com. There’s a free course under the video. If you want to learn about the mastermind, there’s a video for that as well. But the free course underneath is called Land Development 101 it’s designed to help you get started.
I’ve got interviews there with council people, national land developers, and national builders you can hear it from their side. There’s over six hours of content on how to get started in land development and how to raise the capital for your deals, so you can go there and grab it.
If you’re an investor and you’re trying to build a legacy, make an impact, and create financial independence, and you like the idea of adding something like this to your portfolio, you can go to HBGCapital.net/ waitlist. That’s HBGCapital.net the website and you can do forward slash waitlist to watch the video.
On HBGCapital.net, there’s also a free e-book that we give away called 100 Questions Business Owners Ask Before Investing, and you can grab that free e-book. The reason we give that away is a lot of people are new to the space and don’t know what questions to ask to make sure it’s a good sponsor or a good opportunity. That book will help you out, so you can grab it.
Bronson Hill: Awesome. Well, hey, I appreciate you, Brandon. Thanks again for being here.
And to our audience, I hope you are taking the time to really learn about these new assets that we’re talking about, right?
I’m really big on land development. We’re doing some of this, we’re also starting to develop homes here in Altadena. But if you’re paying attention to what’s happening, there are always going to be new opportunities that come out.
I just hope that you’re continuing to learn and grow. There are times when being a multifamily investor makes a lot of sense, and there are times when it’s challenging. Certain assets will make sense at certain times, and it’s that whole Warren Buffett idea: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.
If you’re able to look at things independently, find what’s out of favor, and move toward that, you can actually do very well over time as long as you manage the risks and understand what’s happening in that asset.
I really appreciate you being here, Brandon, and thanks for joining the Mailbox Money Show. We look forward to seeing you guys on the next episode.
