Tools Guide

14 Jul 2023

ChatGPT for Land Investors (Including Prompts!)

Are you interested in saving time and money while also simplifying your land workflow?

Of course you are, who wouldn’t be?!

AI has been all over the news lately so we’re fairly sure you’re familiar with its biggest star: ChatGPT. But did you know you can quickly incorporate it into your land investing business to make your life much, much easier?

Here are 9 ways to use ChatGPT as a land investor plus the prompts to punch in:

1. Create Property Descriptions

When you’re looking to offload land, the description is going to do a lot of the heavy lifting in getting people interested. If you dread writing (not an uncommon thing by the way), ChatGPT is here to help.

The quickest way to get this done is to put all the property data that you want to be highlighted into a bullet-point list and feed it to the AI. And because ChatGPT tends to pump out more text than you need, you’ll also want to set some limits.

Sample prompt:

In a conversational tone, write a short, 150-word property description for this plot of land, using the following information:

[insert property data]

Edit the output as necessary and adjust the word count to suit your needs.

2. Develop Video Scripts for Each Property

Video is a major sales tool nowadays…but it can be also a major pain, particularly the scripting and ensuring your video isn’t too long.

There’s no “perfect” length but given how short attention spans, you’ll want to aim for about 1 minute.

To get your script, you can use your newly written property description.

Sample prompt:

Write a [insert length of video in seconds or minutes] video script used to market a plot of land using the following property description, make the tone [insert the feel you’re after, i.e., conversational, upbeat, serious, etc.]:

[insert property description]

3. Write About Nearby Attractions to Improve the Appeal of Land

Land value isn’t calculated in a bubble, there are tons of variables to consider from access to zoning to what’s nearby. In fact, what’s close to your property may be the biggest factor in the value it has.

Is your land near a beach, a theme park, a national park, a city center, etc.?

Increase the appeal by having ChatGPT create complimentary content that plays up those attributes. Shout out to our friend Mike at MikeSellsLand.com for this idea.

Sample prompt:

I’m selling a piece of property in [insert county or area]. Can you write a 300 word summary of some of the attractions nearby that make the area attractive to a potential buyer?

[insert nearby attraction]

4. Scrub Data and Speed Up Your Excel Workflow

Is there anything more fun for a land investor than dealing with Excel spreadsheets? Scrubbing and merging and reordering (and more), oh my.

Fortunately, there are formulas for many of these tasks. Unfortunately, they’re tough to memorize.

Now you don’t have to.

Whether you want to merge first and last name columns, exclude LLCs or do anything else with your data, ChatGPT has you covered.

Note: to get the most out of this, we’d recommend using the paid version of ChatGPT as it allows you to upload files directly and get a clean one back out. Either way, we have prompts for both options.

Sample prompts:

  • If you’re using ChatGPT for free, you can ask it to write you a formula that you can input manually into your spreadsheet, for example:
    • Give me the Excel command for merging data from 2 columns; column [insert column letter] contains the first name and column [insert a different column letter] contains the last name.
      I want to create a new column with the full name.
  • Give me an Excel command that excludes the term “LLC” from column [insert column letter]
  • If you’re using ChatGPT Plus it’ll do all the work for you. Because the steps are a little bit more involved, we put together a short video explainer (under 3 minutes) to walk you through it:
  • You test it out with our sample files and prompt:
    • I have a list of property owners. I need to create a column for the property’s FIPS code. The Property’s state is under the column labeled “SITUS STATE” (please note that these are abbreviated states across America) and the Property’s county is labeled under the column “County”. Can you create a column for the FIPS code on the file PricedT10.csv?
  • Now you’ll need to refer to a spreadsheet which I’ve also uploaded with the FIPS state and FIPS county. There is a column identifying the state and the county as well and the corresponding FIPS state and FIPS county. Please refer to this spreadsheet

5. Quickly Understand the ROI of a Hiring Decision

Is now the time to expand your team?

You may think you have a grasp on what that new hire will bring to your team in terms of growth but why not get some hard numbers to back up the decision?

We recently ran this very exercise here at Pebble actually by inputting the relevant details and the amount we intended to pay them.

On a basic level, you’re asking ChatGPT to run something of a cost/benefit analysis.

Sample prompt:

Help me calculate the ROI for hiring a land acquisition manager. They’ll be working 30 hours a week and will be paid $30 per hour plus a 5% of purchase price variable commission for every property purchased. Each property acquired is $75,000 on average and our average profit margin is 25%. My goal is to acquire 10 properties a quarter.

From there, ChatGPT will give you an idea of the variables you need to consider and the numbers you need to come up with. Once you have that, you can ask it to do the math for you.

6. Write Job Listings

This is a straightforward and easy-peasy one. If you know exactly what the job entails, you can just list out those tasks and ask for a job description.

If you’re unsure of every element of a job and want to write the most thorough description possible, you can ask ChatGPT to list out what that position normally does on a day-to-day basis.

You’ll also want to add any specifics that may apply to your particular needs, i.e., hours of availability, language spoken, location, etc.

Sample prompt:

Write me a job description/listing for a land acquisition manager for my land investing business that includes these details:

  • Must be in EST time zone
  • Native English speaker

7. Write Your Mission Statement

Whether you’re just getting started or a seasoned land investing vet, a mission statement is one of those quietly powerful things that will fuel your business.

Here’s why they matter and what one can do:

  • Create clarity of purpose
  • Develop strategic alignment
  • Facilitate employee engagement
  • Inform your organizational culture
  • Offer a decision-making framework
  • Educate potential stakeholders about your goal
  • Enable long-term sustainability

That’s quite a lot, but they don’t have to be hard to write.

Ideally, you’ll have some information to guide the AI like your core values or specific goals but you can also start from scratch.

Sample prompt:

Write me a mission statement for a land investing business

This will give you a good starting point and help you generate ideas. From there you can ask them the same questions and add some guardrails and specifics.

8. Build Your SOP Playbook

Growing your land business means having some standard operating procedures (SOPs) in place.

Why? Because without them, you’ll have to hold every new employee’s hand and torpedo your productivity in the process.

The simplest and most effective way to pass on your knowledge is to have a playbook in place.

Save time and have ChatGPT take care of it.

Sample prompt:

Create an SOP for doing initial due diligence on a property for my land investing business

If you have particular steps you’d like included, you can make it more specific.

Create an SOP for doing initial due diligence on a property for my land investing business, in addition to the typical steps, include these as well:

  • Call the county
  • Check for road access
  • Call the owner to inquire about the back taxes

9. Get Market Insights

Now you shouldn’t use AI to replace your market research but you can definitely use it to get a nice overview of the areas you’re hunting land in.

Sample prompt:

I’m a land investor looking to invest in land in North Texas, tell me about the market and current trends

Make Sure to Make It Your Own

ChatGPT likely won’t give you perfect content or perfect answers to the prompts and you’ll likely have to either do some minor editing or tweak your prompts a bit to get closer to the mark.

Nonetheless, going the AI route can save you countless hours – which can easily add up to days – and dollars on routine and mundane tasks.

Use it to your advantage so you can stay focused on the tasks that help your land business grow.


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