New Workshop: How to Find and Develop Rural Land

This Thursday, May 14 at 12pm ET, we’re hosting a live 2-hour workshop on unlocking the value of rural land, led by HUTS founder Wayne Congar.

A parcel priced at $5,000 an acre as commodity dirt can be worth many multiples more as a destination. Exploiting the gap between those numbers is a matter of knowing how to read land, match it to the right concept, and reframe its value for investors and end users. Most developers working outside the urban core have never seen that process laid out from start to finish.

Wayne Congar has spent years building and refining a systematic framework for doing exactly that.

In this workshop, he’ll walk through his full approach, from finding and screening parcels using modern tools through site evaluation, concept matching, placemaking, deal structuring, and investor positioning, using real case studies from HUTS projects.

Whether the goal is a first ground-up rural development project, unlocking acreage already in hand, or building a hospitality concept from scratch, participants will leave with a practical playbook for finding rural land with real potential and turning it into something people want to invest in.

Here's what you'll learn

• How to source rural parcels using modern tools: Use aerial imagery, GIS overlays, and AI research tools to identify parcels with real development potential, compressing weeks of county assessor searches and windshield time into an afternoon at a desk.

• Evaluating rural land remotely: Wetlands, flood zones, utilities, access, zoning, topography, and the red flags that eliminate sites early in the process.

• Matching land to the right concept: The HUTS framework for reading a site’s natural assets and constraints and matching them to the right development concept, from cabin communities and boutique hospitality to hybrid housing and short-term rental portfolios.

• Placemaking fundamentals: How the best rural developers build projects that compound in value over time; and why some projects develop pricing power and destination appeal while others remain commodity acreage.

• Value transformation: The core of the workshop. How to move a rural parcel off per-acre commodity pricing, reframe it around its highest and best use, and build a narrative that attracts investors.

• Phasing and deal structure: Seller financing, option agreements, and phased closings. How to structure deals so early phases fund later ones and how to test demand before full commitment.

All participants will receive recordings of the session, due diligence checklists for off-site and on-site evaluation, and the HUTS value transformation playbook, shared via Thesis Driven’s private Circle community.

This workshop is delivered over one live 2-hour session: Thursday, May 14 from 12:00-2:00 PM ET.

Reserve your spot now.

See you there!
–Brad & Paul