Land with Luke

Invest alongside Luke Smith, offering a 506(c) fund to accredited investors. Fill out the form below and Luke will call you to discuss the fund and or other deals.

The new fund Land With Luke is set up to offer passive investment in the real estate we work on and believe in.

There is a beautiful beach in northern Michigan near where I grew up called Petobego. I had a dream to buy that beach some day. I set up a company and set out to make enough money to buy that beach. The real estate market in Detroit was on the skids and there were all these beautiful brick wall and oak floor houses who were mortgaged up to 2-300K and nobody wanted to pay the mortgages. The banks were selling them for 5-20K each. I knew they were a deal but how do you make money off houses in Detroit while living in California?

My sister lives in Detroit and her husband can fix anything. I talked them into buying a house, they found 12222 E Outer Drive, Detroit MI 48224. Bought it for 18K in 2008 and sold it for 65K in 2019. That was the first one, we learned a lot and bought more of them. Rented them out for income. Family and friends joined in. My sister is still working those houses I’m so proud of her.

The bank puking of those houses in Detroit dried up and I wanted to get more of them for better prices with out all the middle people and fees. After lots of research I found Steve Butala. He figured out that we could get the contact info of the owners of real estate and mail them a letter. Not only mail them a letter but mail them a cash offer enticing them to respond. He opened my eyes to the data side of real estate.

Steve Butala and Jill Dewitt of Land Academy gave me a 10 acre property in Elko Nevada for buying their course. Here is the video I made to sell it on ebay for $1. It sold for $3,353.33 when I paid $1500 for the course. My member number was 4 I later did deals with member #3. Steve and Jill are probably 1 and 2. They have a lot to teach.

Started sending letters out for $100 and acre on desert square looking land. I hand wrote the envelopes and totally botched the letter. I kept track of the response and got over 40% response rate on those letters. No deals everyone called to tell me off. They read my letters! I just had the letters and the price wrong. The delivery was magic.

Steve’s letter template had basic things like answering the main questions people call back about covered. He told me about some price minimums not just $ per acre to implement and I got my first deal.

90210 came up on the caller ID. Do you remember that show? That is Beverly Hills. Now I just got yelled at by every other caller that day as the new wave of mailers had just hit. By this time I was holding the phone away from my ear and just about ducking to brace for the caller to tear me up. Guy said I will sell you the 5 acres in 29 Palms for $500 if you also buy this other one I have up the street for $500 too.

$1000 for two 5 acre properties with power lines, roads and old 600 sq foot foundations. I was sweating. I was nervous. I just said I would pay this guy $1000 for some useless desert I had never seen and never want to use. I hired the first notary I could get on the phone for $250 to take my deed to this guys house in 90210 and get it notarized. Give him my cashiers check and ship it back to me.

The San Bernardino county recorder sent the paperwork back. I thought I was in trouble. Turns out I was supposed to have the return address in the bottom left of the deed as well as at the top left. The recorder told me I could put “see return address at top of the page” written at the bottom. I tried it and it got recorded!

Posted that land for sale all over the internet. Found a buyer that went over there and looked at one of them. He lived near a lake I used to fish at as a kid so we started talking fishing and he bought the land for $4500. He mailed me a personal check and I got the 5 acres recorded into his name and this time had the return address set to him in the right place. The recorder recorded it and I instantly thought how many more of those can I get? Land is easier than Detroit houses.

From there it was buying everything for $500. Then $800, then $1,000, $2,000, $5,000….. now many years later 500K to 2mil.

It’s been one heck of a learning experience. Lots of happy partners lots of deals and lots fun!

If you would like to join in on the fun and future deals please fill out this form below and lets talk. I’m looking for a few great friends to help me start and grow this passive income fund.

I’m offering a base income out of the fund with bonuses as deals do very well along the way.

Over time I hope to entice you to add more funds and or send your friends because the simplicity, communication and returns you receive.