I was fortunate enough to participate in a conference of top producers in Baltimore, MD. During one of the sessions on real estate investing, the topic of investing in land surfaced. This form of investing is overlooked by a lot of people and it really should be given a second look by those considering real estate investing.

Traditional real estate investing means purchasing a property, preparing it for rental (read: paint, carpet, deep cleaning, systems management, etc.), finding renters and then waiting for the rental checks to roll in (as well as the fix-it calls). Some of the other regular challenges of real estate investing are the periodic calls from disgruntled tenants, tenants' neighbors or property managers complaining about your disgruntled tenants, and the worst case scenario of the call from the local law enforcement officials who were contacted by the complaining neighbors about your disgruntled tenants.

Investing in the non-traditional real estate property takes a bit of out-of-the-box thinking. Land is one of those type investments. Purchasing land is not a lot different than any other purchase. If you're buying with a mortgage, the bank/broker is still going to be concerned about the value of the property and may want to inspect the lot or acreage for its value.

If you want to purchase the property for building a dwelling that does not have public sewerage, the local jurisdictions will be interested to know if it will percolate -- or perc -- for the number of bedrooms you want to put in the house.

If you have visions of subdividing a larger portion of land and selling it off lot-by-lot, then you'll need to have the proper inspections done for percolation per lot, plus check with the county to see how many houses per acre will be allowed -- or how many acres per house are required. This may limit your visions of grandeur, if you find out you can only put two houses on the 10-acre lot you intended to load up with a bunch of townhouses.

Coastal, mountain and waterway lots can be a keen investment. One investor I know purchased a lot near a bay and ocean area -- in four years the property has nearly doubled in value -- and nothing has been built on it yet. Better yet, it was purchased with just a 10 percent down payment -- so his actual return on investment is upwards to nearly 800 percent.

Keep in mind, though, that there are more things to do with land than just building a house. Wooded land can be harvested for the timber. In fact, before purchasing timber land, an investor can hire a timber estimator/appraiser to see how much the timber is worth. The potential revenue from the timber harvest could be used in the equation for applying for a mortgage to purchase the property.

For instance, if it's worth $100,000 and there's $50,000 worth of timber on the property -- a lender will feel more comfortable lending money on the lot that you'll be selling off piece by piece. The good thing about harvesting timber is that it can be replanted and harvest in several years once again. This type of property can be passed on from generation to generation to supply your heirs with a renewable resource and continual cash flow.

There are other resources available on land as well -- natural gas, oil, coal, minerals -- all buried deep in the earth for harvesting, thus the owner can pay for the purchase of the land from the revenue generated by harvesting these products.

If an investor decides to sell the land, he or she can also retain the mineral rights to the property -- while someone may want to farm or build on the land, you can still pull revenues from the resources you harvest from those rights.

To get started, talk with a Realtor in your target area. Get to know what land is selling for per acre in the locality and what resources are available on the property. Research, research, research and then research some more.