How does the intertwining of ranching, real estate, and personal transformation shape our understanding of the American West? Dive into this thought-provoking year-end review with Colter DeVries on the Ranch Investor Podcast. Embarking on a reflective journey, DeVries, a seasoned broker and engaging host, weaves together three key themes: ranch syndication, insightful guest experiences from 2023, and emerging trends for 2024.
His exploration into ranch real estate is rich with details about land value appreciation and investment dynamics, set against the backdrop of a rapidly evolving ranching culture in the American West. DeVries doesn't shy away from the complex ethical and emotional layers of gentrification and cultural preservation, offering a nuanced perspective on these critical issues.
Moreover, this episode delves into DeVries' personal narrative, charting his own challenges and the evolution of his business strategies in response to an ever-changing market. It's an insightful blend of professional acumen and personal growth, casting a fresh light on how economics, culture, and the timeless tradition of ranching intersect in today's world. Join us for an episode that promises not just to inform but also to inspire.
How does the intertwining of ranching, real estate, and personal transformation shape our understanding of the American West? Dive into this thought-provoking year-end review with Colter DeVries on the Ranch Investor Podcast. Embarking on a reflective journey, DeVries, a seasoned broker and engaging host, weaves together three key themes: ranch syndication, insightful guest experiences from 2023, and emerging trends for 2024.
His exploration into ranch real estate is rich with details about land value appreciation and investment dynamics, set against the backdrop of a rapidly evolving ranching culture in the American West. DeVries doesn't shy away from the complex ethical and emotional layers of gentrification and cultural preservation, offering a nuanced perspective on these critical issues.
Moreover, this episode delves into DeVries' personal narrative, charting his own challenges and the evolution of his business strategies in response to an ever-changing market. It's an insightful blend of professional acumen and personal growth, casting a fresh light on how economics, culture, and the timeless tradition of ranching intersect in today's world. Join us for an episode that promises not just to inform but also to inspire.
So he's made a good career probably averages $200 million a year in sales. That year was far beyond it. Welcome to the Ranch Investor podcast. I am your three year host, colter DeVries, a credited land consultant with the Realtor Land Institute and accredited farm manager with ASFMRA. I'm excited to bring you the experts on a weekly basis to hear what's trending, what's happening, what's going on in Montana, wyoming, the West and ranches across the United States.
Intro:The Ranch Investor podcast is the most downloaded and informative industry specific content that intrigues while entertains.
Colter DeVries:The Ranch Investor podcast. I'm going solo today, so you've got me Colter DeVries and I've never done this before. A year end summary, just a dissertation on my thoughts, views, values and beliefs A solo episode. But I see it's trendy. So I like to be a hipster and I'm going to do what the other podcasters are doing and do a 2023 summary. And actually I'm excited to test this, to challenge myself to produce a solo episode. Even being the naturally gifted salesman that I am, it's tough to just shoot from the hip, speak from the heart, not worry about being canceled, and give a full opinion, hold no punches dissertation. As I said, this is going to be me talking about three things today the syndication that I've been working on, the guests of 2023, and the trends that I see for 2024. I want to start by saying how fortunate I feel to have this podcast, to have it last three years. As you would imagine, if it were 60 downloads a week, it wouldn't be worth doing. It wouldn't be worth my time, the cost involved. It's not good marketing for my brokerage business. It's more about building community. I've come to find, and the most feedback I receive is actually from people just like myself who are trying to figure out a better way to finance a ranch, to invest in ranches and to become the syndicators themselves. Actually and we've had a couple of guests on who have done that We'll get into that in topic number two some of those guests. I'm going to continue on this syndication why I think it's important.
Colter DeVries:We, as mentioned several times on the podcast, across the United States we have seen land values appreciate so significantly that the holding costs are higher than the annual yield. That's almost going backwards, like in a negative bond for some of these ranches. So it's obvious that the market is saying that a lot of these are not utilitarian assets. These are not cash producing value in that way. Value cash producing assets producing value in some other way and I think we all can agree that the value those type of ranches and I'm talking about Western Wyoming, Western Colorado, western Montana, anything where you can see a mountain and drive to town and get a latte those are very hot, very popular, sexy and and you know I have begged the question before what is a ranch? Is it? Do you have to have livestock on it? Does it have to be supporting an operation that supports one family? I mean that that would be like a 400 head ranch in most places in the West arid West, so that eliminates probably 80% of quote unquote ranches. Does it have to be all about creating a lifestyle around cowboy and generational ranchers and homesteaders? I think the definition of a ranch is it's there, isn't one and it's ever changing.
Colter DeVries:It's subjective, it's personal, and I think that's beautiful because we do see, we like to say that branches seem to be those types of ranches seem to be much like fine art. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it's completely speculative what that art is going to be worth in the future. I bought a print recently of the famed Kevin Red Star Indian artist here in Montana, actually in my hometown, actually a neighbor to my parents ranch twice, once on the south side, once on the north side, and so I have this personal connection with Kevin Red Star's work because I know him personally. But I didn't want to lose my ass buying a print, I wanted to make sure that held its value and I think that's how the majority of Western ranch buyers treat it is. They want to have a personal connection, they don't want to lose their ass, they just want the enjoyment out of it and they want to make sure that they're going to be okay when it comes time to liquidate it. So I personally now can anecdotally say that, yeah, I think ranches trade a lot like fine art. So when that happens, the cap rate approaches zero, right, maybe even negative. When you're holding, costs are are more than the annual yield, and that's going to happen. When you have large improvements house Taylor Sheridan's equestrian system or whatever he's doing with horses on on your place that's going to drive the cap rate below zero and that's okay.
Colter DeVries:We know that there is a lot of frustration across the United States about, about land values and that's coming from the populace, the locals, and I think we should validate their feelings as well. I mean, that's that's me. I am the populace. Fifth generation Montana rancher who lives in a gentler is from a gentrified area, red lodge, where prices are astronomical. If you were to buy a ranch In that area it would take at least 150 years to pay it off with livestock. That's a good thing.
Colter DeVries:Friction and economics. Economics move money from areas of low yield to high yield. That's the study of movement of capital, not just money capital from areas of low yield to high yield, which means we humans have to constantly be creating value, real value. That's the beauty of capitalism and free markets. Going back to the feeling, the sentiment of those being gentrified and I I use the word gentrification and cultural appropriation. So when Taylor Sheridan creates 30,000 new buyers flooding to Montana for a ranch to live their dreams as a cowboy which is okay, that's that's yet another beautiful thing that we get to pursue our dreams and that's not for anyone else to tell us what our value should be. So when they do that, I jokingly say that the locals are, you know, the ranchers like my dad are. They're being culturally appropriated. And I do that to throw it back in the face of DEI, which we'll get into DEI topic number three trends.
Colter DeVries:Staying on this, this friction of local versus outsider. It's nothing new, it's just a new person involved. So the feelings are new to that person, but the trend is not new. The Rockefellers and many other wealthy families have been investing in ranches in the West since the West was settled and tourism income. Ranches as dude ranches or ranches as recreation and hobby sport as we know them today, trophy ranches as we know them today. That's nothing new either, and I have to remind myself of that because I come from a very small town, legacy generational family operation where the livestock supported the lives of the humans, and that is. I can recognize and validate that. That can be painful, that when people feel like everything they've known, everything they've liked and enjoyed is being absorbed, it's being I don't want to use the word taken from them because we're in a voluntary market. It's a willing buyer and willing seller every time.
Colter DeVries:Another beauty of free markets, capitalism is no one is being compelled to do anything. You're not forced to give up what you have services, labor time, product assets, real property at the end of a gun. That's the only way communism works is at the end of the gun, and we're not there. So everything that's happening around us is a beautiful challenge of capitalism. Capitalism isn't a thing, it doesn't exist, it's not real. Capitalism is just another name for human behavior.
Colter DeVries:So here we are, we find ourselves and I'm on the front end of this because I'm a broker, right. So I've got this almost this conflict of interest that I could be accused of selling my friends out, selling my neighbors out for the highest dollar, which is true. I mean, if I'm bringing them, if they've hired me, I'm going to bring them the highest dollar. Right, that's my obligation, that's my duty to them. This rapid change that happened. I do think we should embrace it, and I am guilty of being a hypocrite in this regard. I think anyone who's listened to several episodes could probably point out several hypocrisies of mine. Most notably in my mind is this issue of being a shill. Someone could call me a shill, that I'm, or the, as Karl Marx would call me, the petty bourge. I'm not the bourgeois, but I sell out the proletariat to benefit the bourgeois. I'm the petty bourge according to my good good buddy, karl Marx.
Colter DeVries:I was at a conference two years ago at the height of the real estate boom. Everyone's just killing it, the champagne's flowing, everyone's having a good time, this is all high performing brokers. It's the Realtor, land Institute accredited land consultant. Well, rli's annual convention and the money's flowing, people are doing good and there's a gentleman very high up within the organization, so he's made a good career probably averages $200 million a year in sales. That year was far beyond it and he got up there to accept the award as the highest performer and he said I have mixed feelings about this award.
Colter DeVries:This is bittersweet. It's bittersweet because I'm seventh or eighth generation Floridian. I couldn't even fathom that because Montana's not that old. Me as fifth generation. That's 1883 is when my family came over parts of my family. So I can't even fathom seventh or eighth generation Floridian. And he's saying how bittersweet it is. God, I made all this money for me because I had to sell out my neighbors. The culture around me, my hometown in Florida, is changing. It doesn't look the same, it doesn't feel the same, but I made all this money and Florida is going to be developed. It's houses, it's not cows anymore and pine trees, it's Florida.
Colter DeVries:When the guy sitting next to me turns to me and goes Bullshit, you can't have it both ways. And I agree. I mean this gentleman and I probably shouldn't even lament about the good old days of Montana and Florida when we are on the front end. This is our business. We are supposed to change with the times, respond to consumer demand, figure out a way to liquidate and market supply. The supply is always going to be there. Demand is changing, but demand is always changing and we're here to find that highest and best value and provide the best service to that client who's selling. So I'd agree we can't have it both ways. I probably need to start singing a little different tune about the loss of culture. There's just to justify that a little further. There's always been loss of culture. I mean, when my family came over in 1883, it was still Indian lands. Today they claim to be feeling culturally appropriated, which is just people appreciating that culture. If you wear beads or dress up as a cowboy, you're just appreciating that culture.
Colter DeVries:I know I went to Australia when I was 21 to hitchhike for three months and couch surf. Before Airbnb and Uber I didn't even have a cell phone. It was couchsurfingorg and I went down there with the intent of being a surfer. Long hair, wanted to spend three months on the Australian beach doing nothing with my life, essentially, but surfing, and definitely the locals could have said it didn't work out. By the way, I just hitchhiked and couch surf across Australia for three months. Did not get much real surfing in, but I was worried about the locals, the snobby, uppity, elitist locals saying well, you're not the real thing, you're not the real deal, you're a wannabe.
Colter DeVries:And I think that's okay. It's okay to be a wannabe surfer. We get to pursue our dreams. We get to define what our dreams are. Other people's opinions should hold no weight. And yeah, if I want to be a surfer and I'm horrible at it and maybe my board is cheap and my surf shorts at the time are not name brand, so be it. That's my style, that's my best way of pursuing my dream and I think we should share that with anything.
Colter DeVries:With people who want to dress up as Native Americans they obviously deeply appreciate that culture. People who want to buy a ranch and learn how to rope and ride and maybe fix fence and really wear leather shafts, just for the sake of wearing leather shafts and jingle bobs, spurs where spurs the town where a bigger, taller hat. If you're going to go, go all the way, lean into that, and I think we should appreciate that. And I come from a place a lot of Nimbis not in my backyard small town where that gets criticized and I'm guilty of making jokes about those people myself. Everything is about positivity, finding immense value in what you do, creating the most rewarding life. We can not letting outside opinions, values, morals even affect what we want to do, because morals are subjective as well. We're not going to get into that. But pursuing your dream Can't have it both ways. So here I am.
Colter DeVries:I am trying to create a syndication to bring in more people to these Montana ranches, colorado, wyoming, more people coming in to? Someone could say tourism is an extractive mining industry. You just come in, take what you want and you leave. You're not vested in the local community, not vested in the local area. No alignment of interest for the long term. It's absolutely extractive. It takes a resource and moves it somewhere else, which is okay.
Colter DeVries:Again, I mean, that's the beauty of economics and free markets. The value is being created somewhere. And I think that's what I have to respond to. I can't sit here and, on one hand, whine and lament about the good old days when we had community style brandings, everyone helped everyone, and oh, it's not that way anymore, back in the good old days. I can't do that If I'm going to syndicate a ranch to bring in more people who value that culture, that experience, that lifestyle. And at the end of the day again, this is art, this is an investment, a tangible asset, and there's a lot of people who demand that there is a huge market across the world, that want a small piece of that. They want to feel that, they want to be part of the experience, and I think people like myself and the other syndicators I've had on Harvest Returns, chris Raleigh, josh Green, pursuit Outdoors I think we should build the product, build the platform, the marketplace, create a means for capturing that value because it is valuable.
Colter DeVries:Jason Kent is another one. He's in the Reno, nevada area thinking about how do we protect all these things? How do we protect community culture, ecology, legacy, environment? How do we protect all that yet give demand what it wants. Demand wants a piece of this. There's people who want to move to Reno because it's beautiful, on a great climate Josh Green has identified. There's people who want to have a small interest in a luxurious amenity ranch in Western Colorado or Southwest Montana.
Colter DeVries:We shouldn't fight them. I mean, that's about the dumbest thing you can do if you're in business. Right, and I'm in business. I'm a broker, I'm a accredited land consultant, accredited farm manager. I've invested a lot of money in this business, I've invested a lot of time and, as people mentioned, the first three years, you starve in this business. For the first five years people don't even call you back. And I'm here, fortunate enough to say that this is my seventh year and I'm averaging 10 to 12 million a year sales volume. So this is what I do and I shouldn't fight it and I did.
Colter DeVries:In the beginning I thought I was like I'm going to be a good old broker, ranch guy who serves the farmers and ranchers. I'm going to work with just people like me, generational operators. I'm going to provide them value, make sure that they're protected. I'm going to advocate for them, get them into good ranches on a 1031. And that's a good way to starve. So I have adjusted. I've adjusted to yeah, I want to appeal to the Rupert Murdochs who come in and buy a $200 million ranch. I want to appeal to the Dallas Texas hunter who wants a place in Montana to brag about to his friends at a barbecue on some lake that I want to be at, especially in January and February. I want to appeal to them. I want to appeal to the suburban Chicago homeowner who wants a small piece of Montana, and there's a lot of people and so I had to adjust my business and especially if I'm going to support my two girls.
Colter DeVries:Now Life is much. What I do every day is more meaningful. It needs to be more reasonable, sensible, because I have two beautiful little girls and so I can't do everything with my own ego, and mine and my own ego would get in my way. That's the one that's telling me that I'm the elitist, that I'm the good old boy from Roberts Montana who has some sense of entitlement about what that should look like. What should Roberts Montana be? And that's completely ego driven if I think I can even have that position, or if that I'm entitled to see Roberts stay the same, with community brandings and the good old boy culture, or if that I'm elitist, if I'm better than those who are moving in because I've got some inherited, unearned right. Our rights are defined by the Bill of Rights and the Constitution given by God, guaranteed by the Constitution. Anyhow, we have the right to pursue our dreams too, and I think the syndication is a great way to do that for a lot of people. Drew Hedrick is actually doing that as well. Drew Hedrick is a friend of mine who is syndicating smaller recreational ranchettes in Eastern Montana where there's great trophy elk hunting, something like that. What they're doing.
Colter DeVries:I probably would have had a sharp tongue. I probably would have casted a stone at that. I would have been envious, certainly in that I wanted what someone else has, what Chris Raleigh is doing or Josh Green or Drew Hedrick. Had syndication, online syndication been a thing nine years ago, when I was looking at this as a re to real estate investment trust. That was the more common vehicle method for large passive investments in these types of assets restrictive assets.
Colter DeVries:I would have been envious of those guys because I would have wanted what they had or what they were doing, which is unfortunately getting worse in society with Instagram. People are becoming increasingly envious and it's creating a toxic world around us and that holds people back. Unfortunately, I was able to work through that and just apply myself and say this is what I want. I don't wanna be the small town Roberts Rancher. This is my legacy, it's my past. It's kind of some outside expectations of me, but that's not what I want. I wanna pursue something bigger.
Colter DeVries:I would have also been jealous because that small town there's a atmosphere of jealousy when people come in with more money. So jealousy is feeling threatened by what someone else has, whereas envy is feeling painful feelings wanting what someone else has. Jealousy is threatened and I think a lot of this rapid change is the negative feelings around rapid change in rural Montana are feelings of jealousy. People do feel threatened when land values boom around them, when they go up around them and you can relate that to Brooklyn and any area being gentrified, some old industrial district. That's definitely one of the feelings that arises is jealousy. Fortunately, I think dreams can be stronger than that feeling, those negative, toxic feelings and dreams can.
Colter DeVries:They pushed me to become a marketer, become a broker and work one step closer to syndicating ranches online, and I do believe that this is good for the economy. It has to be. It's a free market solution that's usually value creating, solving a problem, providing a better service at a lower cost, providing a better product at a lower cost, more reliably, less risk. The free market and capitalism is everything we want as a society to improve and I believe that online syndication, opening up ranches for passive investment, is creating immense value and one of the values both financial, economic and cultural, personal, subjective values is that I do think these syndications are going to bring in more like-minded people who appreciate that culture, the cowboy culture, the good old boy, montana culture, rural America. I think it's gonna bring in an alignment of interest. People are vested for the long-term improvement and outcome. You have more people invested.
Colter DeVries:Actually, I do believe that is a superior solution to what I jokingly say, the aristocracy and the gentry and the lords and the dukes, that this feudalist society, this transition to a serfdom where you have the landowners, the elites that are in control of and completely removed from the proletariat, the serfs and again, that's all jokingly how I present it, because I personally believe where we are with the economy, the way the markets are today, that is it's a good thing. It's okay that land values are going crazy. The locals can't afford them. That's okay, because that is what capitalism's doing, and it's creating better solutions. Maybe not immediately, we just don't see it, and that's frustrating for people. This solution, though, is syndication. Bring more people in who share the vision, who want robust ecology, who want good water rights and good land management, and they want a good beef system, a good food system. They want healthy rural economies, self-reliant prairie communities, they want the culture of good people that are not crazy burning down Minneapolis. That is what syndication is doing, and it's making that accessible and available to more people rather than the mega-billionaire ranch owners. That's where we are today with syndication.
Colter DeVries:It has been extremely difficult. I am bootstrapping this. Part of the reason is because I just want to own the whole company. I don't do well with partners, I don't play nice with others, so I've never been good at partnerships. Then the other reason I'm bootstrapping this is because the other alternative would be to blitzscale it, to treat it as a tech venture, tech-enabled land tech, prop tech, whatever fin tech, whatever people want to dress it up as paint stripes on a horse and call it a zebra. The other option would be to blitzscale this to taking a bunch of outside investment venture capitalists and rapidly grow this.
Colter DeVries:The problem there is that the limited investors, the passive investors, partners, the LPs. They become the product For platforms like Farm Together, which we've had Tracy Donovan on, who worked with Farm Together before. I haven't had on Acre Trader, but they are the most well-known online farm syndicating platform. Then you've got Harvest Returns and Josh Green. Some of those are VC blitzscale projects. Businesses Grow the value, sell it to some other firm, sell it to its FinTech, sell it to Goldman Sachs, blackrock. That could be their exit plan.
Colter DeVries:But the issue to me is the limited partners who are entrusting you with their money to make good management decisions, good buy decisions, good timing of the market on selling decisions. The limited partners who have taken some of their hard-earned money, savings, retirements. They are entrusting you with that In those blitzscaling models, they are the product. The actual investment of the farm is not the product being optimized, the LP is being optimized. You can't serve two gods. When you have a retail investor the LP in the farm, and you have a venture capitalist investor who wants to see 30% returns in three years, which one are you going to serve? You can't serve them both because the VC is investing in you to raise more LPs and the LPs are investing in you to find better options for their hard-earned money. That's the biggest reason why I also thinking about this holistically, which is a big value of mine. We talked about it a lot in the podcast. Holistically.
Colter DeVries:This type of prop tech call it venture online syndication of ranches cannot be VC-backed blitzscale. Someone is going to lose and that someone could be the ecology. It could be overhunting of a place If there isn't the right rules and regulations established. That could come at the cost of the local ecology and the environment. It could come at the cost of a bad tenant who goes broke on you or you put such terms and conditions around that tenant that they become the serfs that it's still just the feudalist society that we really don't value and appreciate. For many reasons that's not part of being American. You know everyone has property rights here. Everyone has rights. We don't have kings.
Colter DeVries:It's been very challenging to bootstrap but it has to be bootstrapped For this to work in the long term. It cannot be VC backed and for others it can probably be partnered. For me it can't be. But the challenge is, the biggest challenge is not being a timeshare registered file as a timeshare, for many reasons it must be treated as an investment first and, as I've explored this diligently over the last three years, the equity crowdfunding is becoming increasingly difficult due to the recreational enterprise monetizing, optimizing the value of the recreational enterprise for the LPs, all the while understanding that Western ranches, the majority of their value is in exclusive use and access to recreation. So that that portion of a regression analysis, what explains the value of a Western ranch portion exclusivity, recreation is probably the largest portion of why people buy and so why anyone would want to passively invest in a ranch. Why do that when you can't have access to it? So figuring that out has been tremendously difficult.
Colter DeVries:I've had Holly Fretwell on PhD former professor of mine from Montana State University. She she's been thinking about these issues for conservation, yellowstone area, large private ranches. And how do you? How do you fairly, equitably, equally pragmatically, allocate rec days, recreational days, based on a level of investment, knowing that that's what people actually want? How do you do that While still holistically taking care of the ecology, not over hunting the place, not, not scorched earth style hunting anything that moves dies. And then I've had Eric Blascoe on and another professor of mine, phd, who's the head of economics at MSU, and we talked about auction theory and how that produces the highest and best value in limited markets, which allocating recreation days would be a very limited market if you're holding it exclusively for the LPs, if you're not putting it on land trust, common and broadening the amount of people who could potentially book in reserve a day. If you're holding that exclusively for the LPs, then that's a very limited market and you'd expect a discount.
Colter DeVries:How does everyone get what they want? There's a lot of people here, a lot of stakeholders, the community, the LPs, myself, the GP, the lessy, the operator. How do you create this product to make it work for everyone so that everyone gets on board? That's been the challenge with equity and I think what we're going to move to is or test out, at least I should say is alternative financing, mezzanine financing, bridge funding. I think we're going to, as a minimum, viable product test an LP product that would be based on options, real estate options that acts more like a financial instrument, staying away from the word mortgage. It's a contract for deed. I think that would be the path of least resistance and I say that because I'm working on bringing one to market right now. That seems to be more achievable than figuring out equity. It's based more on cash flows, more on annual yield and IRR. It's pretty objective. It's based on the economics and not subjectively based on location and recreation, all those good feelings around a ranch that are hard to monetize and especially hard to optimize when everyone wants the same thing, which is one thing exclusivity, exclusive use and benefit. So that's where we're at. We are going to be testing mezzanine capital contract for deeds, options, yield based, and I think that's a good way to start by getting the average American exposure to investing in the ranches. That's more cut and dry. So moving on to guests, topic number two guests of 2023.
Colter DeVries:We had some awesome guests on. That's one of the rewards of this podcast. Personal rewards is I have a reason to reach out to people I look up to, such as Will Harris who came on the podcast he's been on the Rogan podcast twice now and Dallas Mount, another mentor of mine, someone I look up to tremendously, and those guys had huge downloads. Those episodes were very popular. I had on Jim Howell who talked about syndication. He did it in the old traditional way. He had a couple of billionaire backers that he put together a management company for and managed ranches South Dakota, montana, colorado, new Zealand. He did it all over the world. Traditionally you get three billionaires and buy big ranches and I've admired that. He was on my radar when I started my brokerage career seven years ago and now I had an opportunity to bring him on and ask him fairly direct questions and kind of how you do it and that's personally rewarding. I very much enjoy. That about this podcast is just the talent of guests we have.
Colter DeVries:On Might calico rate that there was an interesting one where he was so blowhard populist, nationalist and getting into communist socialists that it I didn't even want to release that episode it was. There's been a couple that I don't don't want to release but I mean I got to stand behind my work. I can't just cherry pick and I think I do believe in transparency and I think people should present all sides I mean good, bad ugly, uncomfortable. We should be able to have those discussions. I didn't do much discussing with Mike. He kind of owned the, he owned the podcast for that hour. I didn't get a lot of words in, but it was. It didn't. I didn't agree with a lot of what he said, but I still dropped it and I'd like to do more of that. Actually, I think we need to have more uncomfortable conversations in this country and not get siloed.
Colter DeVries:So, as I continue to develop this syndication, I'm grateful for free to have experts on, such as Holly Fretwell and Eric Palasco and Dallas Mount. These are consultants who would otherwise be charging me for their time and here I get an hour for free with them. I get to ask all the questions I want and they help me build my product, my pitch. They're secretly my advisors. They don't know it, but I have appropriated them as my advisors. And how rewarding is that? When I was fixing fence nine years ago by myself, yeah, there's a lot of good things about that, but I longed for these types of conversations and I longed for interaction with professionals around me, and it takes a balance, I guess. And here I am today and I get to reach out to people like John Hansen, who was the manager of Turner Enterprises, ted Turner's ranches I mean what a great world we live in when people like that are just a phone call away, who share interests with you. So that's a short one. Topic number two is guests. It's been extremely rewarding. We've had some great guests.
Colter DeVries:Topic number three is trends. Here's one that I do feel strongly about. Carbon credits are not going to be a thing. We've had a lot of carbon credit people come on, pitch and I still get pitches for carbon credits people to come on. It's too technically difficult to have accurate carbon credits. It's going to be politically difficult as we move away from the religion of climate change in the United States and DEI. Those are related that type of harassment and oppression and that movement. It's fading out and dying away. I can't say that I always saw carbon credits as just being a trend, a fad, but I think it is. I don't think it'll be that big of a deal here in the next 10 years. Maybe it's a 30 year thing. Maybe technology comes along to where it's accurate, to where it becomes so accurate. Maybe it is valuable to where it becomes less political. I don't see it being a big part of ranches Carbon credits. That's a trend of 2024, going to become less and less relevant.
Colter DeVries:Regenerative agriculture and we do use this term I think regenerative agriculture is just a good way to rebrand what you've always been doing. Most of our operators, who are long-term, resilient, long-term minded, they are already regenerative by those standards. The standards are not clearly defined. I would probably define them as the five key principles of soil health as developed by NRCS. I hate to give the government any credit like that, but they summed it up best with just those five soil health principles. That is regenerative. We didn't really need greenwashing activists, al Gore, the world is coming to an end. Kilimanjaro is going to be bear by 2006. We didn't need this eco rebranding. It was already there, it was already in practice. So regenerative, yeah, we use the word.
Colter DeVries:It's buzzy, it's trendy, it's probably more correlated to an economy that's doing well because it's stylish, maybe superfluous, maybe it's inherently superfluous. It's like liquid death. The water, the can of water. That's a can of water that they sell for like $350. It's just a way to take what always has been, redesign it to appeal to people who are willing to pay more. That's where regenerative agriculture is. It is liquid death. All branding, all marketing, taking something old, not changing it one bit and positioning it to bring a higher price, which maybe I need to concede that that is a higher value. Branding is a value. I'll leave room there for consideration about regenerative agriculture if that is driving a higher value, but I think it's going to wane in 2024. I think that it's had its time in the sun. If it keeps people interested in grazing rotational grazing that's great. Maybe if it brings in institutional investment and maybe if it brings in a larger amount of interest for these syndications yeah, that's great. If it brings more people to rural America that are vested and aligned, it's probably a net positive.
Colter DeVries:Conservation easements Again, I do think conservation easements are correlated to a luxurious economy. When things are going well, people will do conservation easements. People will invest and buy and sell, donate, whatever. Again, if the value is there, which I don't really think the value is there. I think the way operators good operators, rotational crazers if they're healthy, if they're creating profits, they're long term sustainable, they don't need the conservation easement to keep the whole place intact and to keep it ecologically friendly. That is. Conservation easements are not necessary. They're novel, they're political and they are a waste of taxpayer dollars. I would rather the taxpayers be investing in good operators. Hopefully the wisdom of the hive, all the voters and their representatives over time come to understand that conservation easements are a joke, that they're not needed. What's needed is more holistically minded operators and profitable operators, stable operators.
Colter DeVries:I think 2024, probably not yet a loss of love for conservation easements. I do think that that will go away, especially as national debt becomes a bigger issue. The amount of tax we have put on my daughters is just insane. Hopefully our representatives come to understand that and rectify this national debt because my daughters' kids are going to be paying for the decisions we make today. Conservation easements hopefully become a part of that. That program just gets cut and taxpayers are not wasting money, they're keeping more of what they've earned.
Colter DeVries:So that was the three trends carbon credits, conservation easements, regenerative agriculture. Those are all highly related. Trend number four we saw the IX Ranch never sell for 10 years and then it was syndicated. We saw the climbing arrow ranch at that time was the largest sale in Montana history. That was syndicated. We're going to see more of this, especially since we have tech solutions and easy back office management, a white labeled back office that makes the barriers to entry lower. The threshold is lower for people to get in and try this. Create the product, create the service. As land values continue to climb, even the ultra wealthy are saying, well, I don't want to buy a $80 million ranch, but I'd put 10 into an $80 million ranch. So even that level of wealth is interested in syndication. We know that the average American is like, yeah, I'd love to put 500 bucks into a ranch. So across all socioeconomic levels, it seems that syndication will continue to grow, I think due to land values.
Colter DeVries:So to wrap it up in summary, what a great journey it has been. I appreciate everyone who's taking this journey with me. It's the most rewarding thing I've ever done professionally. It is. I look at it as an art, it's self expression, it's a way to be authentic and original. It's just me. I mean. This is the beauty about showing up every day to pursue something you love. Is you just be candid about it? This is my identity, outside of being a father, that comes first. But my identity of artistic self expression is entrepreneurship and pursuing solving a problem. That's, entrepreneurship is always about solving a problem.
Colter DeVries:So I think there are immense problems here that could be solved. Well, I don't think our problems are ever solved. It's the flux of markets and capitalism is. You provide solutions, but then things always change. Technology always drives more value, creates more change around it. So I'm not going to say we're solving any problems here, but I think there are issues being addressed that are going to be benefited from large scale syndication and I think you'll see more brokers offering this in 10 years. Probably might even be a marketplace, might even become more common than the traditional consolidator sites like landcom, land hub, land watch, all those listing services and the brokers websites themselves. Probably won't be 10 years, but those might evolve into online syndication portals. Might be more common than just outright ownership at a certain level, at a certain asset class, like 50 million or more. So this is a trend topic.
Colter DeVries:Number three for today trends syndication. Yeah, I think it'll become more common, more popular in 2024. It sure took a big jump in the last three years probably the biggest jump it's ever taken because of other online syndicators Crowd Street, commercial real estate and a few other commercial real estate platforms that will spill over into other assets. We've already seen that with art. You can passively invest in art, probably coins and cars, I think there's people are finding ways to when, when the crypto craze was going on, they were tokenizing all those assets. You see, it definitely was Zillows, spin off Picassocom, second home ownership, syndicated farmland. So this, this isn't going to change. And, wow, what a what a beautiful world we live in when investing is becoming more democratized. It's not a gatekeeper society where Goldman Sachs and Black Routes are the only ones that are black rock, black stone, merrill Lynch those, those firms have a stronghold on what and how you invest.
Colter DeVries:Hopefully we see that trend improve. I don't think we will. I think the SEC keeps a pretty tight red tape that's on the investing industry, and for good reason. There's been swindlers in the past. I mean Bernie Madoff's and that that kid with the token recently can't SPF Sam Bankman freed. You know there's always going to be fleecers and hustlers out there, so maybe we do to for to protect the legitimate out there who have to spend tens of thousands of dollars, like myself, on attorneys to get this launched. I guess that barrier has not been lowered, but hopefully for the investor, barriers are being lowered. It's becoming democratized and more accessible, and that creates more value. That's what we want. We want more value being created. So thanks for tuning in. It's been a tremendous ride with you all and look forward to staying in touch. We've had some great calls, texts, emails, social media messages. Keep it up. I like. I like hearing the feedback and there's anything you'd like to hear from me. Going forward, 2024 is going to be a beautiful year. Thanks for tuning in.
Colter DeVries:We at Ranch Investor are very interested in hearing your thoughts, your opinion, your wants, desires, hopes and dreams. Everything on ranch syndications, ranch investment, ranch real estate syndications and DPP's direct participation programs. Please reach out.
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