Bill Eshenbaugh, Founder and President, Eshenbaugh Land Company

July 2026 — Bill Eshenbaugh, founder and president of Eshenbaugh Land Company, sat down with Invest: to discuss the state of Tampa Bay’s land market, the infrastructure pressures shaping growth, and the firm’s expansion across Central Florida. “We love what we are doing in Florida, we love where Florida is going, and we want to be part of the continued growth in Florida as long as it is done intelligently,” Eshenbaugh said.

What key changes over the past year have had the biggest impact on your company, and in what ways?

One of the main things that happened to us was the closing of 112 acres in Pasco County to Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital. That site could have been apartments, it could have been retail, but I am really proud of that deal. It is a heritage site for me. When I go by there 10 years from now, I will be able to say I did that deal, and it is going to do something for a lot of children in that part of our market who were not served before.

It also won two great awards for me. One was Land Deal of the Year from the Realtors Land Institute, and the other was the top dealmaker award in my specialty category, land, from CCIM. So it has been a lot of fun.

There has been some adjustment in single-family, but that is going on almost everywhere right now. We still see good tailwinds. Jobs create the demand for land. If there are no jobs, then no one wants land. As people migrate here and create jobs, our market has stayed strong. We are also still seeing some of the tailspin from what happened after COVID in 2021 and 2022. It was crazy then, but it is a good, strong market now.

Young people get their education and want to come here. When I started this business, they got their education and went to places like Austin, Nashville, or Charlotte. Now we are one of those places, maybe better than some of them.

What do those changes signal about current demand for land in the region?

It is all about money. I spent last Friday afternoon with my wife at International Plaza, and I was struck by the luxury cars, the high-end shops, and the number of people actually buying things. Years ago, you would see people walking around with no packages. Now people are buying expensive things.

That is a great demographic comment on Tampa. The money is here. You go into restaurants where dinner is going to be expensive, and the place is full. That tells you something about the market.

I am also pleased by the engines that drive us here. Jobs matter, young people want to be here, and there is a real vibrancy. I go to meetings and look out over the audience, and it is not just a bunch of people who look like me. It is a good mixture of racial backgrounds, men and women, and younger people. I am really proud of that.

In a specialized field like land brokerage, how are you attracting and developing talent in your company?

They come to us. That is our main recruiting. We do not advertise, and we have never hired a placement officer to find somebody for us. They come to us, and we get to pick and choose. We have developed a pretty good reputation.

We are independent. We are not part of some big national firm, but we have a culture of teaming the young people up with the senior people so that they have a payday sooner rather than later. This is a tough business. It is two to three years from the time you start a land deal until you close it, normally, because of entitlements and the process. Not many people can live two or three years without a paycheck.

We try to support the young people we pick. We also educate them. Every Monday morning, I do a case study for the young folks. Sometimes it is a deal I did not close, and I try to explain what I did wrong. Other times it is a deal we did close and what made it work. We try to teach them the inside story.

We just recruited a young woman in Orlando who is coming in with a master’s degree from Georgetown. She wanted to be a land broker in our firm. She had studied us and what we were doing. She was with a firm that was not giving her that support, and we think we can offer her that opportunity. We want people to do the right thing, be ethical, and get the education they need in our industry.

What key trends are you seeing in Tampa Bay’s land market?

We see both good things and bad things. There is a contradiction in the market. Governments say they want affordable housing or workforce housing, but then at the next meeting they say they need to raise impact fees to pay for roads, sewer, and water. Then they say they need more housing or need to redevelop old sites. So there is tension there.

On top of that, our infrastructure has not necessarily kept up with the huge growth since COVID. We had a huge migration from places like New York and Philadelphia, and we have not built enough roads, schools, or, in some cases, sewer and water. We even have water restrictions in some areas right now.

It is also easier now for citizens groups to get organized using email, websites, and online tools. Sometimes they get pretty carried away, but in many cases I can see their point. Traffic is bad sometimes, and there is real pressure on infrastructure.

We have demand, but we also have what I call the close-the-door-behind-me syndrome. People move onto land that used to be ranchland, and then they do not want the next property developed. That has always been there, but it feels more vocal now.

Where do you see opportunities emerging despite those pressures?

The weather is good here. The tax base is attractive. We do not have any state income tax, personal taxes are pretty low, and there is a good business environment. Florida continues to be one of the places people want to relocate to or locate a business.

Our unemployment rate is still reasonably low. It has gone up a little bit, but it is healthy. So when you combine the weather, the tax structure, and the business climate, there are still a lot of opportunities here.

How does the company engage with local stakeholders to help ensure land deals contribute positively to the region’s long-term development?

We believe in major involvement in our industry. Right now, we have the incoming president and a director of the Realtors Land Institute for the state of Florida. We have two past presidents of NAIOP, two past presidents of the Real Estate Investment Council, a board member there, two people in leadership in the West Coast CCIM chapter, and someone on the board of directors at the Builder Association.

When we get into those positions, we try to be on committees that also give back to the community. I am on the CCIM State Nominating Committee this year, helping pick new leadership across Florida. We also communicate actively with other big land firms around the state because our issues are different from firms focused on other property types.

We encourage our people to get a couple of designations, accredited land consultant and CCIM. When I got my two designations in 1995, I was the second person in Florida to have both. Today there are more than 30 in Florida. I take a little modest credit for trying to spread that message that a rising tide floats all boats. All of this comes back to serving the client better, understanding their goals, and helping meet them.

Looking ahead to the next few years, what are your key goals and priorities for the company?

We are pretty optimistic that this is a great place to be, so we opened an office in Orlando on January 1. We think that helps spread us across the I-4 corridor. Orlando has not had a firm like ours that is purely a land firm. We are dedicated to understanding land. We do not take office buildings, we are not part of a big national firm, and we are not an afterthought.

Our people in Orlando come with experience in the land business, but they were in the wrong places before. We think we can give them the support and direction they need. We see opportunities up and down the I-4 corridor.

We also continue to look at the product types we can offer here. That includes industrial for users, medical and healthcare, where we have done five hospital deals, and retail, which is red hot right now because it trails residential.

As the founder of the firm in 1992, I never envisioned we would be doing this kind of thing. I worked half my life to get a $10 million deal. Over the weekend, I was working on two properties we have under contract, and together they total almost $80 million. The numbers are pretty amazing.

We love what we are doing in Florida, we love where Florida is going, and we want to be part of the continued growth in Florida as long as it is done intelligently.