Nine notes of rural land paper, and the discount looks too thin

I've held land longer than I've held anything else, and the number I'd argue with is your 55% recovery, not your 15% default.

When you take a rural parcel back, you get the dirt at whatever the dirt is worth to a cash buyer, minus the months it sits. You do keep every payment made to that point and the down payment, which people forget, so the economics of a takeback on a 26 month seasoned note are much better than on a 4 month one. Run recovery per note by seasoning instead of one blended figure and I think the picture separates hard. Your fresh notes are the ones that hurt.

The three in the county with no comps, I'd price those close to zero above the raw land value you can defend yourself by driving it. If the operator can't show you what similar acreage in that county actually closed at, and it may be a non-disclosure state where he genuinely can't, then you're being asked to accept his origination price as evidence of value. It isn't. He set that price.

One more thing. On the contract for deed files, ask whether the buyer's interest was recorded. If it was, and depending on the state, curing that after a default can be slower than anyone expects.

Servicing. Nine notes at $25 to $35 a month per note is $225 to $315 monthly against roughly $1,580 of interest coming in, so 14% to 20% of the interest income goes to the servicer before a single note goes late. Late notices, escrow analysis if taxes are being collected, and any modification work usually bill on top of that. The cost structure of servicing is the same everywhere: small accounts cost nearly what big accounts cost to handle. Get a written fee schedule with the collection and default work priced out, because that is where the surprise lives.