The DealMachine Real Estate Investing Podcast
Oct 14, 2026 · 15 min · 11 segments
Flipping vacant land has become a multimillion-dollar business for Clayton Hepler, whose team has already completed over 90 deals this year. In this episode, he explains how he finds rural markets…
David LeckoHostWell, all these baby boomers own land too, right? In fact, one point three trillion dollars, trillion with a T, of a la- American farmland will change hands by twenty forty-five.
Because most of the people that own this farmland is owned by sixty-five-year-olds.
I grew up on a farm, I know how it is, but there's very few people that are farmers because these, th-this land becomes most productive when you develop it, right? So over forty percent of US farmland is owned by people sixty-five and older.
There's over three hundred million acres expected to change hands by twenty forty-five.
Can we see the opportunity here, right? If you are good at finding off-market real estate, buying it below market, if you can take advantage of this, it's unlike the house-flipping world, right? And I'll show you why in a second.
Most of it's not hitting the open market, and our model is literally fit to do this, right? We find off-market deals, we go direct to seller.
We use, um, data platforms like DealEngine to skip trace and, and reach out to these people directly to create the opportunity.
You know, also, I think it's great because AI, as we all know in real estate, they can write code, it can draft contract, replace debts, but it cannot make more dirt.
One of the things that people always say is, you know, dirt, they're not making any more of it, right? So why is land investment development better? Number one, it's a three-pronged wealth engine.
You can do subdivides, where you're making a couple hundred thousand dollars per pop.
Or you could entitle the land and go from this land is agricultural land to change it into zoning classification to be a multifamily development, to be a, uh, housing development, whatever.
You can put mobile homes on it, and that, that adds an extra zero, right? So if we look at two land engines, you could do multiple millions of dollars per year more than if you bought a business, right? So the reason why I like land as wealth is that it's the only real estate asset class where the skills you learn from day one as a beginner allows you to stair step.
Well, all these baby boomers own land too, right? In fact, one point three trillion dollars, trillion with a T, of a la- American farmland will change hands by twenty forty-five.
Because most of the people that own this farmland is owned by sixty-five-year-olds.
I grew up on a farm, I know how it is, but there's very few people that are farmers because these, th-this land becomes most productive when you develop it, right? So over forty percent of US farmland is owned by people sixty-five and older.
There's over three hundred million acres expected to change hands by twenty forty-five.
Can we see the opportunity here, right? If you are good at finding off-market real estate, buying it below market, if you can take advantage of this, it's unlike the house-flipping world, right? And I'll show you why in a second.
Most of it's not hitting the open market, and our model is literally fit to do this, right? We find off-market deals, we go direct to seller.
We use, um, data platforms like DealEngine to skip trace and, and reach out to these people directly to create the opportunity.
You know, also, I think it's great because AI, as we all know in real estate, they can write code, it can draft contract, replace debts, but it cannot make more dirt.
One of the things that people always say is, you know, dirt, they're not making any more of it, right? So why is land investment development better? Number one, it's a three-pronged wealth engine.
You can do subdivides, where you're making a couple hundred thousand dollars per pop.
Or you could entitle the land and go from this land is agricultural land to change it into zoning classification to be a multifamily development, to be a, uh, housing development, whatever.
You can put mobile homes on it, and that, that adds an extra zero, right? So if we look at two land engines, you could do multiple millions of dollars per year more than if you bought a business, right? So the reason why I like land as wealth is that it's the only real estate asset class where the skills you learn from day one as a beginner allows you to stair step.
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