Seth: Hey everybody, how's it going? This is Seth Williams. You're listening to the REtipster Podcast. Today, I'm talking with Don Healy, the guy behind something called a Site Facts Report. So, I met Don last year through the REtipster Forum, where he was asking some great questions and giving some great answers to people. And I ended up getting on a call with him and he explained what a Site Facts Report is. And he even put one together for me for free for a big parcel in Michigan I was looking at just so I could understand it better.

And it was interesting enough that I wanted to bring him on the podcast and just talk through this. When I reviewed the site facts report on my property, it uncovered several things that I never would have found on my own. Some things were pretty meaningful and some were situational, but all of them were viable depending on the use and the exit strategy and the risk tolerance.

So in today's conversation, we're going to talk about what this report is, what it isn't, who should use it, and who probably should not. And when spending 500 bucks makes total sense for this kind of report and when it absolutely does not. So let's dive in. Don, welcome to the show. How's it going?

Don: Great, Seth. I've listened to you for a long time. I spent a lot of time in the field and with being in the field, you do a lot of driving and listen to a lot of REtipster pounding the highway. And so it's a real pleasure to be on this with you.

Seth: That is so great to hear. I'm honored. Thanks so much for listening. And on that, so let's talk about your background. Are you a land investor or are you involved in the land business in some other way or how did you get into this line of work?

Don: So I actually, my background mostly comes from new home construction. I started out my career in high volume, high fast paced residential production construction. 2008 came around and I actually fell back on my engineering degree where I got heavily into high risk engineering, risk management, risk mitigation. Had a revelation in that part of my career. I was like, I don't, I still don't want to be an engineer.

And so I came back to home building after about eight years of engineering. And that's where I really got into working with people building houses on land, working with some investors who were purchasing parcels to build on. And in that time, really discovered that understanding the secrets of the land, doing the due diligence early.

Helping people understand those things helped the process for both the land buyer and the builder. You know, those twofold wins. And so working for builders, I built some internal processes that I used for evaluating properties. And I would go on hundreds of lot walks a year evaluating properties and giving summaries for people that help the downstream teams.

And so when I decided to leave the W2 corporate world, focusing on where I've had the most impact on people based on the bag of tools that I've gathered over my career, really it was where I'm at right now. And that's helping people that are purchasing land or buying land to sell, and then also helping builders understand the risks and the issues that go along with that, go along that land. And, you know, really the basis is, you know, I'm not here to tell somebody that a parcel is not buildable or doesn't meet their intended use. My intent is to give them all the information so that they can make good decisions with that.

Seth: So for people who have never heard of this before, and I suspect most listeners have not, what problem does a site facts report exist to solve? And by the way, when I say that, it's spelled S-I-T-E-F-A-C-T-S report. So like, what is this thing? Why do people pay? Is it 500 bucks per report to order one of these?

Don: Yep. It's 500 bucks. Yeah. And the intent for the site facts report is very early stage due diligence.

And that is when somebody is first evaluating a property or if they're buying a property to build on to really understand what that next layer of information is that could impact them both schedule wise and financially. And site facts is, it's that middle space between what a quick due diligence from an application can tell you and what a $5,000 or $10,000 lay-in use can do in a full due diligence package. So the intent here is to give high-level accurate information that's specific to the property that digs that next layer and give it quick. We turn the reports around in five days.

So fast, affordable, and very high-level information.

Seth: And am I understanding correct? This does not involve a site visit, right? You're not like physically going to the property. You're just pulling all the possible information from the public records?

Don: That's correct. That's correct. Yeah. I mean, we do, we call it a virtual site walk. You know, when we have the opportunity to use street view, we'll use, you know, some of our background and construction experience looking for, you know, transformers, looking at slope, looking for wetlands areas to help accentuate the rest of the research. But it's pulling jurisdictional information, both property specific and pulling the zoning codes and ordinances and being able to do a comparison against the real things with the land against the codes and ordinances to understand what extra things may need to be done, what needs to be considered.

Seth: So you mentioned getting accurate information. How do you make sure the information is accurate when sometimes the sources themselves are not accurate? You know, like I know I've seen like the street view, for example. Sometimes the picture is like three years old. I kind of think. So how do you know for a fact this is true as of right now?

Don: Well, you know, and Seth, honestly, there's always going to be a better level, which is hiring a surveyor, hiring a geotech, you know, going and hiring a guy to go walk the lot. What we found in our experience for the uses, as long as somebody understands what the... End use for the property is. Once we compile all of the information, we start our research at the federal level. We gather federal data. We gather the state level data. We gather jurisdictional level data. Sometimes that's a triple check against comparing it.

So we use essentially a risk mitigation tactic, but there's always going to be a better level. And that is going to be hiring a local geotech, hiring a local surveyor, hiring a local land use consultant. But really the intent for our reports is that risk understanding.

Initial decision making, hey, this property looks and smells like it's going to be a big winner. Let's go hire those experts if it really is going to financially make sense for the project.

Seth: So if all the information on these reports is of public record, why do people pay $500 per report? Like what pain point are you solving for people that they aren't willing to solve on their own?

Don: Well, because as you've probably experienced, a lot of the GISs can be super convoluted. One place where we find a lot of opportunity, we actually find a lot of quote unquote unknowns is what we call multi-level triggers. And that's where there's multi-factors that go into a zoning ordinance. For example, you know, we run into erodible soils plus a 15% slope pushes you into a geohazard overlay, but that overlay is not a map overlay. That's a code overlay.

And so it's those multiple triggers that drive into another planning or code related issue is really the stuff that our report. And yes, anybody could go find that, but there's not a ton of people that want to spend four or five hours sitting at a desk digging zoning codes to really try to figure this stuff out.

Seth: Yeah, that's actually a great point. And I remember the first time I saw one of these site facts reports, that was one of the big light bulb moments I had. I wasn't even thinking about what you just said when there's multiple issues that the one issue on its own isn't necessarily a big problem, but when they're combined, it becomes a big problem, like the erodible soils and the steep slope.

I wouldn't have even thought of that. I would just look at each thing, be like, okay, that's fine. That's fine. But when they're together, now it's a problem. But I remember in the report that I looked at, I was talking about how the property could probably not handle a conventional septic system because of the soil type that was there and the type of soil that was there would drain too quickly.

For the longest time, I didn't even know that was a thing. I thought the whole goal was for it to drain fast enough, but it can actually drain too fast. It was another light moment that we're like, I just would have thought, okay, drains, it's good. Let's move on. But it actually pointed out, no, no, like think about this problem too. Aside from the time and mental hassle of doing it, there's also like, don't just do it, but like fully understand what you're looking at. It's kind of a big deal.

Don: Yeah. I mean, I just ran into one last week. It was a property that looked great. It was, it was surrounded by resource zone properties. So it was surrounded by forest properties.

And as I dug into the code, those resource zones bordering that property, they imposed a hundred foot setbacks because they were resource zones and a hundred foot setbacks on three sides made that property just, just darn near unbuildable. So it's little things like that.

Seth: So thinking back to the $500 cost of one of these things, trying to understand what does the box look like for when a person should or should not bother ordering this? And also when in the process should they do it? Because if I'm looking at a bunch of like tiny, you know, thousand dollar desert squares, like the numbers just don't math. It doesn't make sense.

So I'm trying to think through, and I guess to some extent, this is up to the end user to decide for themselves, but from your side of the table, like how big does the deal need to be where it makes sense to do this? And do you order it when you're almost at the closing table, but you order like right after you get the purchase agreement signed or before that, like, when do you actually pull the trigger and say, yes, I want this report?

Don: There's a couple of steps in the process. You know, my first thought as, as we're talking through this is that land investor needs to know who they're selling that property to. Right. And so the, the value for what we do is really when you're buying lots with the intent to sell to somebody who's going to build on them.

And I've thought about this in terms of, you know, it almost ends up being a war of due diligence when you're selling it to somebody who's going to build on it. Right. And you want to have the better due diligence to make sure that if there's something that buyer is going to find, that's going to trip your whole, whole deal up. You, you want to be aware of that before you get there.

So we'll box it with that. Like, especially if somebody, if you're selling to somebody who's going to, who's going to build on it. And, you know, for, for us, the earlier, the better, the perfect time is if you have the time going into a due diligence period, right? You make an offer, you establish 30 due diligence, we can give you this $500 report for in five days. That gives you the time to go, you know, if you need to hire a surveyor to verify boundaries, if you need to do some of that, that gives you enough time to be able to, to work through that in that, in that 30 days.

Now, you know, Seth, we do offer a service. We call it a site score. That is a quick look, you know, we look at five points and it's, you know, we look at zoning verify the zoning meets the the needs, we look at floodplains, we look at wetlands, we look at access, and then we do a quick look at slope. And now with that said, your listeners that often they have an application that does that for them, right? And you know, so I don't know that there would be a lot of intent or a lot of opportunity, but you know, we offer that service to give that quick easy look. That's for the shop the land shoppers.

And then when they move into, you know, finding a piece of property that like, this is going to be a moneymaker for me. Then that's the $500, five days. We turn around a really good report. We'll do a call with them to talk through the points of the report so they're better educated and they can go have better conversations with the seller of that property.

Seth: Before we get much further, we should probably establish what is a site facts report not that some people might think it is, right? So this is not an appraisal. It's not saying what the property's worth. It's not an environmental. It's not a survey. With a lot of real estate deals, those things are required. If you're going to get financing, you got to do that stuff, or it's commercial. You might want to get environmental anyway.

So does the site facts report become not necessary if a person is already doing those other things?

Don: Yeah, I would say if you've already got those things in motion, the decisions are already made. You already have the information to make your decisions. You know, honestly, if it's a caliber of property that's going to need all of that, the site facts really could serve as an early stage due diligence because that $500 is going to be a small fraction of what that total property is if you're willing to invest the rest of that, right?

So you could use the site facts as an early stage decision maker before you start hiring all of the guys to do the rest of that deep dive, essentially to give it a sniff test on that caliber of a property. But, you know, really where we serve well is the smaller lots, the lots that are intended for single family homes or small developments. We find a really sweet spot in that one to 40 acres on for single families. And then, you know, for developers that, you know, the sub five acres, they're not huge investments. They don't necessarily need all of the layers that you just talked about.

Now, you know, to speak to what SiteFacts is not, I mean, you touched on a bunch of that, right? What we're, you know, we don't do the comps. We don't engage with professional services. We leave legal law, land use attorneys. We leave, you know, wetlands delineations. We leave that to the professionals. Now, there is a lot of times that we make recommendations.

To go to a professional, right? We see it a lot in our region where we run across something that then triggers like, hey, you should probably go get a geotech report, or hey, there's multiple layers of conditional uses and planning that you're going to have to go through.

We suggest that you go to a land use attorney to be able to work through this. So we're able to provide those suggestions and recommendations and that sort of stuff can have massive financial impact on the end user of that property. And honestly, it's going to impact the value, right? If your end user of that property wants to build a house and they've got to go through an 18-month, $40,000 land use approval process that includes multiples of professionals, it's good to know that because you can price that property accordingly based on who you're trying to sell that property to.

Seth: Did you invent this product or did this kind of thing exist before you started this business?

Don: This service exists and with land use consultants. And, but what we've, what we've found in my experience is that your average lot buyer, especially that's buying a single property, maybe it's the only property they buy in their life to build their dream home on. They're not necessarily searching out a land use consultant to do that. And a lot of those land use consultants, they're tied up with the big builders, the 300 lot subdivisions, the big commercial stuff. And so the time and cost for a single lot buyer or a small lot buyer doesn't necessarily work out for somebody to go to a land use consultant.

So really the niche that we're finding is providing that high accurate service. Giving them all the information they need to be able to make decisions without going to a land use consultant paying, you know, $2,500, $3,000, $5,000. That's getting way more than they're ever going to need to be able to make the decisions that they need for a lot.

Seth: When you started doing these things or maybe even as you continue doing them, is there anything that surprises you about how much critical information is technically public, but it's functionally invisible? Like what kind of information like you can find, but you're probably not going to find it because it's just difficult to see or even understand what it's saying.

Don: I mean, like, you know, we touched on it earlier, but honestly, those jurisdictional overlays, like there's a bunch of stuff that's not shown in the maps that's not shown in the maps. That's buried in the codes that impacts how somebody is going to use a property.

And I run into it time and time again. And honestly, investors, I run into a lot with investors, especially investors that are intending to build because they're making quick decisions. They make a quick call to the county to find out if a property is buildable. And the county's like, yeah, property is buildable. And then they purchase the property and find out, well, it's buildable under a conditional use that's going to take all of these things to actually make it buildable.

Seth: It's interesting looking back on my build career, I probably would have looked at some of that stuff closer had I known what I've seen since then and how many deals have gotten tripped up because of stuff like that. Yeah. Something that I used to do way earlier in my land investing career that I never do anymore is when I'm putting together a listing to sell a property, calling it buildable. I don't call anything buildable anymore because that's a huge loaded term. So many things could possibly have to be true that are not true to call it that. So just don't even go there again.

Don: Now, standing on the other side of the fence, I see so many listings that are, you know, that say buildable, gently sloping utilities at the curb while utilities available, right? And yeah, utilities are available, but you've got to do 300 feet of mainline extension under the county road to be able to get to the property.

And that's where you've got to be so careful with reading what's in a listing because it makes it really hard. And exactly, I mean, that's exactly where we fall, right? Like your average land buyer is, they're going to read in a listing that utilities are available and they're not going to know that, you know, that that lot has been isolated. They've got to build a road. They've got to build mainline extensions. They've got to do all these sorts of things.

Seth: Yeah, it actually happens all the time where I see stuff in listings that's just false. Like it's just not even right. Sometimes it's like, it's just boldly false. Sometimes it's like what you're saying where it's like, it's true, but it's, there's a lot of nuance to it. But that's why all those listings have that disclaimer at the bottom that says information deemed reliable, but not guaranteed. So like they could kind of just be lying about everything and it's up to you to figure it out.

If I see buyers due diligence, like that's the immediate red flag of, okay, what, like, what do we need to dig into here? There's gotta be something. It also makes you wonder what's the point of even asking a seller information about their property when they could be lying and they probably don't even know all the information. But then my answer in my head to that question is like, why not? They probably know something you don't, so you might as well ask them, but just know that that's probably not the end of the story, right?

Don: So I just reviewed a property and in the seller's disclosure, it was either unknown or no, right? There was no red flags in the seller's disclosure. We started digging in and the tax assessor had right on there that the property was unbuildable. So the tax assessed code was unbuildable. There was red flag number one.

And we started digging into it and we knew it was a steep lot. We knew it had some things. Well, we found some information about historical landslides in that area. Okay, let's keep digging. And as it turned out, there was a note that was recorded against that property in the title reports that alluded to something having to do with a landslide on that property. And come to find out is there had been a landslide during the development of that property.

And it essentially had been written off by the county as unbuildable. And granted, we went back to the city and the county and they're like, yeah, we'll reclass it as buildable as long as you do the work. And that was helical piles and geotechnical engineering and third-party reviews and all this sort of stuff. But that's just one of those things. And in the real estate listing for this property, it said beautiful property of your dreams with the views and gently sloping. It said all of those things, but it was hiding all of those layers of issues.

Seth: I don't know how much experience or insight you have with this, but when a site facts report kills a deal, what's usually the reason? Like, and was the deal actually bad or was it just misunderstood?

Like, do you ever hear from people who ordered it and say, yeah, I got your thing and I didn't do the deal because of this? Like, do you? Keep tabs on that stuff?

Don: So I've had a handful of them and the number is smaller than you think because typically people are willing to work through the things. It's just the numbers don't work out the way that they had originally planned them. But no, we've had a couple of deals killed and actually a late stage. We had one, it was an investor that bought a property to demo and rebuild.

And we found a zoning ordinance that had been passed within the last 60 days that imposed massive restrictions on the property that essentially made it unbuildable for him. We've had a couple of them come back where we've uncovered easements, found the survey records or recorded survey records that the land buyer didn't realize that there were easements that were going to impact where they wanted to build a home and it essentially made it unbuildable for them. Or it pushed the build site from where it looked like they wanted to build their house up to a hillside that was going to cost them multiple tens of thousands of dollars to be able to develop. up.

So there's not a ton that we do that kills the deal. But like I said, there's almost every single report has got something that's going to uncover some sort of financial impact on that property.

Seth: Can you think of any situations along similar lines where a site facts report made a deal look worse on paper, but a sophisticated investor still chose to move forward anyway, or maybe it made it even better for them. Maybe it showed them an opportunity that the average person would be scared off by. Has that ever happened, do you think?

Don: Yeah. I run into those land buyers that they're not afraid of the planning processes.

Conditional use process, if they can pick up a property at the right deal, especially something that's zoned marginally, and they can go work with the county, they can do the work to be able to get it fully zoned, fully established for single family development. There's guys that really dig that. I'm not personally a guy that loves going through those planning processes, but there's some people that target that and they can pick up under market properties, get a, you know, a building approval area or whatever needs to be done. And then we'd be able to resell to a builder and be able to make some money on it.

Seth: I know we've kind of addressed this a little bit, but just to add more clarity to when it does, or in particular, it does not make sense to order one of these things. So it sounds like if somebody is doing a project where they already have to order an appraisal and environmental and survey, and I don't know, maybe their general contractor is telling them to do all this stuff anyway, it probably doesn't make sense to order one of these. Or if it's somebody who's just going like after super cheap stuff, and I don't know where the line is, but I don't know, like, would you say if the property is worth less than 5,000 bucks, 10,000 bucks. It doesn't make sense. Or what do you think that line is for most people?

Don: You know, honestly, and maybe this is regionally specific, but I mean, even sub $50,000, we get into lots that are north of $50,000. People are looking to make a legitimate investment, at least the end buyer and user of a lot is making a legitimate investment. If it's just swapping desert lots in the, in, in Eastern Oregon, Arizona, no, probably doesn't. But if you're, if you're buying a lot that was an infill lot in a subdivision that was, you know, developed 20 years ago, and it's the last one standing, I would certainly get one of our reports to understand what the red flags are.

And then on the flip side, like we were talking about, I just talked to a guy that was purchasing a lot in a recent subdivision. It was partitioned or the plot was recorded in the last three years. All the data is fresh. It's a flat lot. All the utilities were stubbed. All the markers were fresh. There's no sense in having me do a report on a lot like that, all the information's there.

Seth: I don't know how often you've used ChatGPT, Deep Research, or any of the deep research things out there from the different chatbots, but it's pretty incredible what it can do and how much information it can pull back on pretty much anything you might be researching. Like just a very impressive report.

And I think about what this is, and I've not tried to do this kind of thing for a single property before, but I mean, how much do you think AI could realistically handle of this today and what parts still absolutely require human judgment?

Don: I'll tell you this. I mean, we, we use AI in our research processes a lot, but with very refined prompting and front end human review to actually know that the, the hard facts of the input data that we're using, we fight hallucination a lot. Really trying to drive to citable code references and stuff so that we can go review. And we run into hallucination a lot.

I do think the day is going to come that it's a lot better, but with that said, there's a lot of very specific information that needs to be understood to be able to do good due diligence on a property. And we're developing some tech to help expedite this. But from our seat, there's always going to be a human in the loop. There's always going to be a level of human review and expertise because there's just so much nuance in it.

And with that said, I've gotten in battles back and forth. We've probably all been in the ChatGPT battle where we're like, no, that's not right. And it's like, yes, that is right. And you finally dig into the code and you're like, no, look at this, you're wrong. It's super frustrating.

Seth: I kind of thought the hallucination thing would be figured out better a few years into AI being a thing, but it's still a huge problem, especially when it's a highly specialized thing where it's like the information isn't necessarily out there on the internet for it to find. And it's, I was just dealing with it this morning. I probably wasted a couple hours going back and forth about something. And eventually I just have to like, you know, I just, I'm done. Just shut the conversation down. This isn't getting anywhere and just start over again.

And so, yeah, I mean, it's a, I don't know that that will ever be fully resolved because some things in life are just very difficult to know for a fact. And when you have chatbots that are trained to try to make you happy and tell you plausible sounding things, it's inevitable that you're going to get that and super dangerous when it's important and matters.

Don: It may get worse because I mean, we're, we're already finding, and I've, I've experienced myself is the AI feeding on other AI generated information. Instead of going to the black and white code, it'll go to an article that was written by AI about something to be able to try to glean expertise. So it's like, it's almost making that exponentially worse. And I don't, I don't know what the solution is other than human verified data as, as inputs and then human verified outputs.

Seth: It almost makes you wonder, like, can we change history? Like if If something happened 500 years ago and like we have enough things saying the wrong thing on the Internet and it pulls from that and we start treating that like the gospel truth, it's like, man, it's kind of weird to think about like what is truth anymore if you can't trust these things. But anyway, well, right. I mean, the tenants, the tenants of science are out the door. I mean, they've been out the door for a long time. Yeah, it's just make it worse.

It's a great world we live in.

Don: Right.

Seth: So when you guys are doing these site facts reports, is it safe to assume you have some paid software or softwares that you're using to gather all this information? Or is it literally just finding whatever free public source is out there and pulling it from that?

Don: So we've got internal apps that we've developed ourselves that help assist with the research piece of it. And granted, it's using, you know, USGS sources, it's using GIS sources, it's using those jurisdictional level sources to be able to help us with that information. We will back check. There's, you know, some other due diligence applications out there that we'll use essentially as a multi-source back check to make sure that what we're pulling is good. And then again, that human review before it goes out the door. And we've done enough reps on these reports that if something doesn't smell right, we can dig in and go find the black and white in the code.

And at the end of the day, this information is going to be in black and white or in ink somewhere, right? We'll even go as far down to the jurisdictional level PDFs to verify zoning. We found discrepancies in the GIS information against the PDFs. If we have the information to grab, to back check and verify, we'll grab it and back check it.

Seth: That kind of stuff happens, I don't want to say all the time, but it's not that uncommon to find where like Land ID has a parcel map that looks one way and Land Portal looks different. And the satellite imagery from Google Earth looks totally different from both of those. It's just like, so what's true, you know?

Don: And what we find too is the better of the information, and I don't know that it's the best, the better of the information is what you can actually pull from the jurisdiction level GIS.

Because I've sat there next to the county planners and the permit technicians, and they're pulling the same GIS that we're looking at. But where you can get into a little bit of trouble with some of these applications is when they're buying data packages, because you can go CoreLogic and Regrid, and there's places where you can buy these data packages, but those data packages have a date on them. And that information where I've found discrepancies in like parcel sizes and stuff is something that's been partitioned in the last year or two. And the data package that's being sourced for that information is a couple of years old. And that's typically where I find those discrepancies.

Seth: I mean, are there still counties out there? I imagine there probably are. Where like this information is just not out there. Like it's there, but you got to like physically walk into their office and request the paper copy. Like does that ever happen? And if so, what do you do with that? Do you just not grab that information or do you have to actually go through the trouble of pulling it together?

Don: I don't know if we can call out Idaho, but Idaho, absolutely. They're trying to get with the times, but they're still very much 10 years ago. But I mean, honestly, you know, especially in those jurisdictions where you start finding those big gaps where you can't find the electronic information. They're very accommodating in sending screenshots or sending, I mean, I've gotten cell phone pictures of paper plans to show infrastructure and stuff.

So what I've found in due diligence, especially in areas like Idaho, like they love it when somebody is calling before there's a problem to understand what's going on with the property. They hate dealing with the property, the problems after somebody has bought a property and working through those issues. So if you call them with the right mindset and you're like, hey, I'm doing early due diligence on this property. I know this and this and this and this, can you help me fill these gaps? They are more than happy to have that conversation and help.

And we'll do that. I mean, with, with our site facts reports, we'll call and gather that information if we need to. Now we do disclaim that if you order a site facts report and we can't get the information to be able to provide value, we're going to call you right back and refund you and be like, hey, like, I don't think that we can apply value to what you're, what you're trying to do here just because there's no information. But I haven't had to do that yet.

Seth: If a land investor tried to replicate a site facts report using AI or even not AI, just trying to do it on their own, what would you worry most about breaking? Like what would be the hardest thing to actually pull all the information and make it accurate? Is there some common thing that's like, yeah, this thing right here is always a pain when we're trying to do it?

Don: Honestly, it's time. Yeah. I mean, if somebody who's a knowledgeable investor who knows a thing or two about land and jurisdiction, it could take them four, five, six, eight, 10, 12 hours to be able to dig through the information, understand the zoning code, find the citable references, really to make sure that that... And yeah, they could replicate our report, but it's going to take them a good chunk of time.

And that's really where a lot of our value comes from. Superintendent for a home builder, they're going to spend four or five hours doing the level of due diligence that we do. And so it's a pretty easy sell to, you know, for 500 bucks, especially when, you know, you've done due diligence before, like you've got to keep focused on it, right? If you're getting emails and phone calls in the middle of trying to figure out something in a zoning code, that's where the opportunity is to make those misses.

And we can give you that verified information that we've dug into and we've done that work for you. So you don't have to.

Seth: Yeah, it is extremely easy to get lazy on due diligence. I mean, even if you don't get lazy, like it's still easy to miss stuff. I hear stories all the time about people who they did a lot of the work. They just missed this really weird oddball thing that nobody would expect them to catch anyway. If I could think of the biggest problem or thing that needs help for most people, it's probably the due diligence. And it just also happens to be extremely important.

Don: And part of what we pride ourselves on too is if we can't give the answer from black and white code, we'll give an educated, essentially templative question to go ask the jurisdiction.

And we've all experienced too with jurisdictions where you talk to Bob one day and he gives you an answer. You talk to Nancy the next day, she gives you a different answer. But if you come in with a very pointed question of like, hey, I see this and this and this with my property, how is the county going to want me to deal with this? Then you have a lot better odds of getting the right answer.

And so, you know, we make a lot of recommendations on our report of like, hey, we see this, we're not sure how it's going to impact your property. We suggest you go ask the jurisdiction this information.

Seth: And so that drives you to that next level of understanding. Have you ever had a client tell you, this report just saved me from a very expensive mistake? And if so, what happened?

Don: We've had that quite a few times. Off the top of my head, I mean, we were talking about that investor earlier that bought that property that they were going to demo build. It was a $1.4 million property and essentially made the buildable area unbuildable if they were going to demo the original house.

And that would have been potentially a million dollar mistake for them all the time. For the most part, we help people make those decisions and plan appropriately. So if they're buying a property and they've got an $800,000 budget, and we discover for them that they're going to have $20,000 worth of soil remediation, they're going to have to hire a stormwater engineer. They still figure out how to put everything in the bucket, but instead of going and writing a contract on a $700,000 house, they're going to write their contract on a $500,000 house to be able to fit in that budget based on the information. Almost every single report helps people make those types of budgeting and cost to a student.

Seth: The interesting thing about that, I think you're talking about the hundred foot setback thing that ended up like eliminating a lot of the buildable area in that kind of situation.

Like I could go and get an appraisal and it would tell me one thing. I could get a survey. It would tell me another thing. I could get an environmental. It would tell me another thing. But like, I don't know that any of them would actually put it together and say, hey Seth, just so you know, there's all these setbacks. It means that the buildable areas, like it just doesn't articulate it that well. Like you really have to be looking for it to find it. Whereas a site facts report, am I correct in saying that it would articulate it that well? Like, does it actually point out these kinds of problems?

Don: And the more data we have, the better, right? If there is a survey that had been done five years ago that was recorded with the county, there was a wetlands delineation that had been recorded against the property at some point. All of those facts go together to produce that story that we end up telling in the end report.

Seth: I mean, does it ever happen where somebody says, look, I've already gotten an appraisal and a survey and on this and this and this and this. Here's all my information. Now can I get a site facts report? Like, is that a normal thing or would that make sense? Because like now you actually can pull in more information and explain more.

Don: Yeah, you know, now as you're saying that, yes, we have had customers come to us that have that information, but a confirmed no is almost as valuable as a yes, if that makes sense. If we can verify in the code that no, you don't have to deal with this, and here's the evidence that says no, you don't have to, there's value in that.

And honestly, I struggle with that as I'm doing reports because I'll come up with a clean report that's all no's, nothing to deal with. But then you think about the data that goes behind those no's. That actually tells somebody like, hey, you've got a free pass. This is a good to go lot. The research that went behind those no's, there's value to that as well.

Seth: Yeah. Sometimes the best deals are the ones you don't do, right? And you can only not do them with confidence if you have all the information. So if you could wave a magic wand and force land investors to check one thing that they routinely ignore, what would that be?

Don: I'll give you two. I mean, first one is zone for the intended use. We find it in the Pacific Northwest a lot, property that's zoned farm use only. That makes it really hard to do anything other than farming. And we get investors that buy EFU properties. They're like, yeah, we're going to do, we're going to subdivide it into 10 parcels and we're going to sell it. It's like, no, no, you're not. Minimum lot size is 80 acres.

So verification of zoning and then soils is the next thing. Expansive soils, unusable soils, all lump slope into that as well. Slope adds dollars faster than anybody could even imagine when you're talking about developing land.

Seth: So slope and soils is the next thing that nicks people when they're buying properties. Yeah, it almost makes me think about, like I am planning to put together a direct mail campaign in a few different markets to specifically target properties that a mobile home could be placed on. And one way that I can filter this list in the Land Portal or whatever data service I end up using is, you know, sort by vacant lots that are intended to be used for mobile homes.

So the old me would say, okay, I'm good. These are all mobile homes. But it's like, well, hang on. Like you first have to understand does the local jurisdiction require a minimum size requirement to put a mobile home there? Like you sort of have to make sure you understand the other boxes that have to be checked, not just looking at a single filter that doesn't tell the whole story.

So I'm almost wondering, like, it doesn't sound like a site facts report is exactly what I would need, but it's like, I'm almost wondering if there's a service where like I can come to you and say, look, Don, I want to buy this. Can you want to help me understand what has to be true for me to actually be able to do that there? Like, what does my jurisdiction actually say? I realize I can probably find it myself, but I'm too dumb or too lazy to do that. Can you look it up for me and tell me what I need to know?

Don: Yeah, absolutely. We do those services typically on an hourly rate. I mean, and it depends on how contained that the service is. If we know about how long it's going to take, we can give a quote. You know, Seth, at the end of the day, my whole purpose here is to help people make better decisions and have better experiences with land and with building on land. And that's the whole basis of what I'm doing.

And so, yeah, if we can dig in and help you understand something, even if it's something that's got a plat recorded and you want some help understanding what the plat notes mean or how that may impact the downstream, we're more than willing to dive in and have those conversations.

Seth: So if people want to use your service, where should they go to do this?

Don: You know, our website is the first stop. That's www.sitefactsreport.com. And there you can find all the information and you can actually order a site facts or a site score report. I'm very active on LinkedIn. If you just search for me, Don Healy on LinkedIn, DMs through there, you know, that's probably the next best place to get a hold of me.

Seth: And remind me, what is the site score report cost? That's not 99 bucks.

Don: So 99 bucks for a site score report.

Seth: Okay. Gotcha. So that's sitefactsreport.com. I'll have a link to that in the show notes for this episode as well at retipster.com/258.

Don, thanks again for coming on. Thanks for sharing the service that you offer to the world. Thanks for doing what you do.

Don: Awesome.

Seth: And all the listeners out there, we will talk to you next time.