A Land Seller Case Study
Ross Amato was between a rock and a hard place, seeing opportunities for seller‑financed land deals pop up but feeling constrained by manual servicing processes. In his business, Dollar Land Store, each new note was tracked by a soon‑to‑retire CPA using an aging system.
The company needed a way to grow its land investment portfolio without proportional increases in administrative task time or error risk. When the company’s CPA retired, the opportunity was clear: Ross needed to implement a system that could automate recurring payments, centralize note data, and give borrowers 24/7 visibility into their loan payments.
By partnering with ZimpleMoney, Dollar Land Store aimed to transform a high‑touch, manual operation into a streamlined, technology‑driven business that could support long‑term growth in both active notes and transaction volume.
Manual Servicing Stifled Land Seller Loan Portfolio Growth
Dollar Land Store is a family‑run land investment business focused on affordable, mostly rural land parcels across the western United States. They buy and resell vacant land at accessible price points, with roughly 80% of sales completed using seller-financing on long-term notes.
For years, Ross’s father worked with a CPA who managed all note servicing by hand. Payments arrived in batches of checks, got keyed in manually, and were reconciled with printed payment booklets and annual statements.
This workload capped growth: adding more seller‑financed deals meant risking errors, delayed postings, and an unsustainable drain on one person’s time. Borrowers lacked a self‑service portal and relied on email or phone to check balances, due dates, and payment histories, which made on‑time payments less consistent and increased customer support demand.
“Looking back, that was a tremendous amount of work that is all automated now with ZimpleMoney,” Ross recalled.
When Ross took over the family business, he knew the clock was ticking down fast toward the CPA’s retirement. Ross faced inheriting what he described as a “primitive, almost DOS‑style” loan system, or rebuilding servicing from scratch. It was not economically reasonable or scalable to hire a full-time employee to service Dollar Land Store’s loans.
Ross was spending around a dozen hours each week entering payments, updating balances, and responding to borrower questions about their accounts. All of this admin work was eating into not just the time he needed to find and procure new land deals, but also his family life.
Dollar Land Store needed a servicing approach that would keep pace with its land acquisition and sales strategy, without sacrificing accuracy, customer experience, or Ross’s bandwidth.
Automating Seller-Financed Note Servicing with ZimpleMoney
Ross selected ZimpleMoney’s loan self-servicing platform to support Dollar Land Store’s seller‑financed land contracts because the platform met his requirements:
- Ease of use for Ross and his existing sales operation with Shopify
- Simple customer interface so borrowers could self‑serve
- Functionality and automation for payments, balances, and reminders
- Economics that fit a growing, but still lean, land business
Ross succinctly described the sentiment of ZimpleMoney’s lender customers: “I love helping our customers, but I love it the best when they’re able to navigate things on their own.”
ZimpleMoney is Dollar Land Store’s centralized system for tracking and servicing each note from day one. Once a loan is initiated, the ZimpleMoney platform automates the repayment schedule, calculates balances, and processes payments with minimal upkeep.
“Once the loan is initiated, it typically runs itself,” Ross said. ZimpleMoney created the scalable backbone for Ross to handle a growing number of owner‑financed land deals.
Since implementing ZimpleMoney, Dollar Land Store has grown from managing roughly 40 active notes to 230, with new loans being added on a weekly basis. This growth in portfolio size and transaction volume has been supported without an increase in back‑office staffing, due in large part to automation and standardization within ZimpleMoney.
The administrative time required to manage loan servicing has dropped dramatically. Ross reports that his weekly time spent on manual data entry and tracking loan information has fallen from 10-12 hours to roughly 1 hour.
“Dollar Land Store is a great example of what happens when seller‑financed real estate lenders and buyers use the right tools,” said Ted Tekippe, CEO of ZimpleMoney. “By automating his servicing work with ZimpleMoney, Ross Amato can focus on the things that will grow his business.”
Adding Payments Through ZimpleMoney ‘Has Been Fantastic’
Even after he started modernizing, Ross still spent hours every morning printing invoices, processing card payments through Square, and then re‑entering those payments into his records. Ross decided to switch his card payment processing to ZimpleMoney, which resulted in reduced processing costs and Ross getting some of his time back.
“People always wait till the last second to pay, so on the 15th I would work late to try to get all those invoices entered…” Ross explained. “Even the time that I’ve saved the last year not having to do that has been fantastic.”
On‑time payments have also become more consistent. Customers can now:
- Access their loan information at any time
- Set up automatic payments
- Review account details without needing to contact Dollar Land Store directly
This increased transparency and convenience has made account maintenance easier for both borrowers and for Ross, contributing to more predictable cash flows and fewer exceptions to manage.
Without a better system, scaling from 40 notes to hundreds of notes would have required a full‑time servicing hire… or more late nights and weekends for Ross. “ZimpleMoney has definitely been a contributor to time management being more efficient and productive,” he said.
Top Benefits Achieved with ZimpleMoney
- 475% growth in active notes (40 to 230+) after switching to ZimpleMoney
- 85% reduction in weekly servicing time, from 10-12 hours to about 1 hour
- More consistent on‑time payments via automation and self‑service borrower tools
- Scalable infrastructure to keep adding new seller financed land deals weekly
About Dollar Land Store
Based in central California, Dollar Land Store is a specialized land acquisition and resale company with hundreds of parcels throughout the American West. Dollar Land Store offers seller financing options on affordable rural land deals. Learn more at DollarLandStore.com.
About ZimpleMoney
ZimpleMoney is a loan self-servicing platform designed for private lenders, land sellers, real estate investors and note buyers. By automating key servicing functions, centralizing loan data, and enabling self‑service for borrowers, ZimpleMoney helps organizations like Dollar Land Store scale their portfolios while supporting operational efficiency, accurate accounting, and customer experience.
Allison Murray is a recognized payments and financial technology expert with more than 10 years of leadership experience in payment technology and financial services infrastructure. With a proven track record of developing frameworks that drive value creation for fintech companies, Allison’s technical knowledge and industry foresight have earned peer recognition across the payments industry. She has spoken at leading fintech conferences including Money20/20 and Finovate, received the Los Angeles Business Journal’s Women’s Leadership Award in 2020, and actively contributes to the fintech community through NYC Fintech Women and the Women’s Network in Electronic Transactions (WNET).
Disclaimer: This article is for general educational purposes only and is not legal, tax, or financial advice. Seller‑financed and owner‑financed real estate deals may trigger complex federal, state, and local requirements; consult a qualified attorney and tax professional before structuring or servicing any loan.
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