What Goes in a Deal Package That Gets a YES from Us in 24 Hours

By Drew Haney · Founder, Rooster Capital · May 2, 2026

I’ve underwritten somewhere north of 5,000 land deals at this point. The ones that fund quickly all look basically the same. Here’s the template.

What gets a YES vs a NO in the first 24 hours

I look at hundreds of deal submissions a month. The ones that get approved fast all share five characteristics. The ones that get a no — even when the deal is real — usually fail because the operator left something out that triggers a manual back-and-forth.

The five things every submission needs

1. Property address (or APN if no street address). Sounds basic. But maybe 20% of submissions arrive with just “parcel in Apache County” — useless for underwriting.
2. Your purchase price + how it was negotiated. Cash offer? Wholesale assignment? Owner-finance terms you’re trying to convert? The structure matters as much as the price.
3. Your projected sale price + at least three comparable sales. Pulled from where? Land.com? County records? Be specific. We’re going to verify, so save us the time and pre-verify.
4. Your time frame to sell. 30 days? 6 months? Both are fine, but the answer changes the math.
5. Your operator background — how many deals you’ve closed and what your wins/losses look like. First deal? That’s OK; tell us. 50 deals deep? Even better.

What gets a fast YES

• The math works on a conservative valuation (we underwrite to comps minus 10–15%, not to peak comps)
• The acquisition cost is <50% of the projected sale price (gives us margin to absorb hold-time and price softness)
• The property is in a state we already operate in heavily (we have title relationships, we know the county quirks)
• The operator has either a track record OR a clear plan with realistic numbers
• The deal isn’t time-pressured beyond reason (24-hour close requests get more scrutiny, not less)

What gets a fast NO

• The math only works at peak comp pricing (downside is a loss; we won’t take that)
• The property has obvious title issues already disclosed in the submission (heir issues, mineral rights disputes, easement problems — these can sometimes be cured but they need their own conversation)
• The acquisition cost is >65% of projected sale (margin is too thin)
• Operator is asking us to fund something we’ve never funded before (commercial land development, large multi-family land, manufactured-home-park land — outside our wheelhouse)
• The county / state has known title or seller-financing complications that would require our attorneys to spend significant time on a per-deal basis

What gets a counter

If the deal is real but the math is tight, we counter. Example: you’re asking us to fund $60K when the comps suggest we’d be safer at $52K. We’ll say “we’ll fund $52K, you bring $8K to close, here’s the rationale.” You can take it or pass.

Counters happen on maybe 30% of deals. That’s not us being difficult; it’s us being honest about what the numbers support. Operators who push back with new comp data sometimes win the counter back. Try it.

The single biggest reason deals get delayed

Title questions that should have been investigated before submission. If you submit a deal where the seller doesn’t have clear title, or where there are liens we have to wait on, the deal sits in our queue for two weeks while we wait. Pre-submission, run a basic title search. Most counties offer free public records lookups. It takes 10 minutes and saves 14 days.