Finding Financial Momentum In Land
January 10, 2026
One of the greatest tools available to produce financial momentum is real estate. Most people who produce any kind of content about real estate will, about 95% of the time, talk about single family residential rental properties like it’s some kind of miracle investment. As far as real estate is concerned for the individual non-institutional investor it’s one of the worst investments available- high cost to buy and operate, high headache factor, low returns. It’s no secret that I am a commercial real estate broker and investor. When I say that residential properties are a bad idea it’s not because I have a bias toward commercial properties. I used to build houses and I love doing that. But the numbers just don’t work. It’s not an emotional decision for me. It’s math plain and simple. So there are a few who talk about the advantages of commercial real estate, me included.
Cash Flowing Land?
But almost no one even mentions investing in land and most don’t even consider the possibility of land producing cash flow. But it can, and sometimes with little to no development needed. How? Land is rentable just like a building. There are many different ways to lease land to someone depending on how much land you have and what kind of location you have. Here are some examples.
The Commercial Ground Lease
I’ll start with my favorite. The commercial ground lease. You buy a commercial lot in an in demand area of town. Certain types of businesses will lease your lot and build a building at their own expense. These are usually very long term leases that can range from 10 to 20 years and often with a corporate guaranty as in the case of regional or national chains like coffee shops, restaurants, convenience stores, or grocery stores. All you do is lease them the land and they do everything else. Most are triple net(NNN) leases where the tenant pays the property taxes, insurance, and maintenance costs in addition to the base rent. It's also good to remember that this type of property can be very expensive depending on the location.
Industrial Outdoor Storage/Truck and Equipment Parking
Got an extra 5 or 10 acres lying around? If it’s easily accessible to major highways it can be used for storage. Companies with large equipment, trucking companies, and independent truck owner operators will pay to store or park their trucks and equipment rather than buying the acreage themselves. Many truck drivers just need spaces for one or two trucks. I have a client who had 9 acres with fencing and a stabilized surface who leased out space to a bank that had repossessed several trucks.
More Remote Land
More remote pieces of land ranging from 5 to hundreds of acres can have a lot of uses. It can be set up as a campground and rented as individual campsites or glamping sites on short term rental websites. Larger properties can be leased to hunters who will gladly pay to use the property during hunting seasons. You can also lease to ranchers and farmers to graze livestock or plant crops. My sister has 300 acres with a one room cabin in south Texas that their family uses for hunting. They also lease it to a rancher to graze cattle. She could do well leasing to hunters since it's in a high demand deer hunting area.
So these are a few examples of how you can generate cash flow from owning land. I haven’t gone very in depth in the discussion of each type. There is a lot more to the story especially for the commercial ground leases. That will be a topic for another article.
I hope this gives you some ideas on how you can generate cash flow in real estate without the hassle of maintaining a building. As always do your due diligence before jumping into a real estate investment. Feel free to respond to this email if you have questions.