Approached by Landowners

For the past few months, ever since we had to part ways with the land in Howell, we've taken a new approach to finding land for our eastern Michigan glamping resort. In short, we've started looking for landowners who may be interested in a lease or partnership arrangement as opposed to a flat-out sale. To support this new approach, we created a Real Estate inquiry page for landowners to describe and submit their land to us and start a conversation.

Real Estate Inquiry Page

Over just a couple of weeks of putting the form out there, we’ve had seven people reach out. This is pretty good considering our strategy so far has been at no cost; we’ve used our social media and blog to spread the word to our audience. We also joined several Facebook groups focused on glamping, campgrounds, and real estate, as well as groups focused on the local community; we probably shared our real estate page in 30 to 40 Facebook groups. Here's a summary of what each person brought to our attention.

Right in Howell!

One of our early submissions came from Bridgette in Howell. She operates on Hipcamp, which is a platform that allows private landowners to rent out space for RVers and campers. She had about 20 acres and a stream connecting to a lake, with her home on the property as well. Although we likely could have found a way to partner, we decided that only having four good private sites on the property was too restrictive. But what was cool was that she did encourage us to look into an area summer camp that may be interested in using part of their land to generate additional income - i.e., glamping! This very same recommendation was made by someone we met at our business couples retreat in August and, in fact, I had left the camp owners a message the day before talking with Bridgette. We’ll anxious to see what comes from that.

Three Hours to The Southwest & Northwest

Another submission came from Sam and her husband, who just bought a campground, but they are located in Decatur, Michigan, which is almost 3 hours from us to the southwest. It’d be awesome to have a campground as a starting point to avoid some township and state permitting, but it’s just too far out of our target area. Lynda also has land about 3 hours from us, but hers is about 3 hours north in Boyne Falls. It’s about 280 acres of farmland with a pond, stream, barn, and residence. While we love that area of Michigan and it seems like it has a lot going for it, our followers know that we’ve always said we wanted to bring that “up north” feeling to somewhere much closer to us.

30 Acres Near & Far

Jeremy, who has pretty much completed all of his permitting for his rustic campground, is located in the "UP", in Marquette, Michigan. It's about 6 hours from us. He has a spare 30 acres that he was considering using for glamping. While we know the U.P. is beautiful, it’s just too far away from our lives here. Deborah also has 30 acres with a lake in Grand Blanc, the same city we live in now. She used to own an off-grid glamping space near Manistee. We’re definitely interested in speaking more with her.

Two Jasons

Then there’s Jason, who has 90 acres in Southern Indiana with the opportunity to buy an additional 126 acres. Lots of space, but again, too far away. A second Jason reached out, not with land, but with an interest in partnering with us. We’ll be keeping in touch with him as things move along.

So, we’ve had some good leads from this new approach and are hoping for more. I think this affirms our theory that there are people out there looking for ways to monetize their land. I’m looking forward to more conversations with the people I’ve yet to speak with. And depending on what develops in the coming weeks - either from these submissions or new ones, we’ll consider doing some paid advertising on social media to engage a larger audience in our search for land. We appreciate any of our followers sharing the Real Estate page also!