Why I'm starting Terrenos con Daniel
Too many families are told a home is out of reach before anyone shows them the whole map. Here is what I keep seeing, and what I plan to do about it.
I have spent most of my working life around numbers and around land. I grew up in Colombia. I started in finance. I helped launch Uber across Latin America. Today I work with land every day.
The part that stays with me is a conversation I have over and over. Someone tells me they want a home. Then they tell me, almost like an apology, that it is probably not possible for them. When I ask what they looked at, the answer is usually one thing. One price, on one app, for one kind of house, in one town.
The math did get harder
This is not in their head. A home costs more against what people earn than it did a generation ago. [STAT: median home price vs median income, then and now.] Rates moved too, and a rate is not a detail. It decides what the same house costs you every month. [STAT: 30-year rate today vs 2021.]
Median home price vs median household income
Placeholder shape. Real values and source go here.
So the feeling is real. What is not real is the conclusion they draw from it.
Nobody showed them the whole map
There is more than one road to a home, and most of them start with the land. You can buy a lot and put a manufactured home on it. You can buy a lot and build in stages, as money allows. You can buy something that needs work and fix the part that matters first. You can buy with family and split it. None of these are tricks. They are ordinary things that ordinary people do, and they almost never show up in the places most people look.
Almost nobody is lying to these families. They just never hear that the other options exist.
Land is where I can actually help. I look at parcels all week. I know what makes one worth buying, and what makes one a problem you will not see until you try to build on it. I know which questions to ask before any money moves. That is not advice. It is experience, and it is worth passing on.
What this is
A weekly email. A show where I sit down with people who do this work, in English and in Spanish. Essays like this one when something needs more room than an email gives it.
It is free. There is nothing to buy here. I am not going to sell you a course, a coaching call or a list of properties.
What I want from you
Send me your question. The one you feel a little embarrassed to ask out loud. Those are almost always the best ones, and they are the ones that turn into episodes.
Everything starts with the land. Let's start there.
