HLRBO Launches Largest Platform Overhaul in Company History, Bringing Modern Marketplace Tools to America’s Hunting Lease Industry

April 21, 2026

The Minnesota-based startup, now serving more than 200,000 users across North America, rolls out a sweeping update designed to modernize how private land gets discovered, leased, and managed.

April 21, 2026 /OUTDOOR SPORTSWIRE/ – HLRBO (Hunting Land Rentals By Owner), the nation’s premier online marketplace for hunting leases, today announced its most significant product update since the company’s founding in 2015. The release spans more than a dozen major features and represents a leap forward in how the platform connects private landowners with vetted hunters across the U.S. and Canada.

The update comes at a pivotal moment for the recreational land leasing industry. As public lands grow increasingly crowded and America’s approximately 800 million acres of private land remain largely untapped, a growing number of landowners and hunters are turning to digital platforms to bridge the gap. HLRBO has emerged as the market leader in that space, listing properties across all 50 states.

“We’re building something that didn’t exist before,” said Heath Schubert, CEO and Co-Founder of HLRBO. “Millions of acres of private land sit idle every hunting season.

This update is about removing barriers between those two groups.”

A Market at a Crossroads

The timing of the release reflects broader shifts in American hunting culture and rural land economics. Agricultural margins have tightened in recent years, and many landowners — farmers, timber companies, and heirs to generational property — are looking for ways to make money when their land is idle. At the same time, hunters who don’t have family connections to private property are increasingly priced out of guided hunts and crowded off public land.

HLRBO has spent a decade building the infrastructure to solve that problem: legally sound lease agreements, secure payment processing, background-checked hunters, and options for insurance. The new release doubles down on that foundation by adding consumer-grade experiences that make leasing land feel as simple as booking a hotel room, while preserving the aspects of trust and relationship that define the hunting community.

What’s New

The overhaul spans the entire platform, touching every major user workflow for hunters, landowners, and the field representatives who serve them.

For Hunters, the platform debuts a completely redesigned dashboard and navigation experience, including a new Lease Finder tool that makes discovering available properties faster and more intuitive. Short-term bookings (daily, weekly, seasonal) now move through a streamlined request model that gives landowners full control over who accesses their property.

For Landowners, the update introduces a dedicated calendar for managing short-term bookings and annual leases; automated lease renewals to eliminate the administrative burden of year-over-year renegotiation; and lease deposit functionality to protect property owners before a season begins. Landowners can now respond to hunter inquiries from a phone, tablet, or desktop.

For Field Representatives, HLRBO has launched a dedicated landing page and dashboard — the first purpose-built tools for the team members in the field who help landowners list and manage their properties.

Redesigned landing pages for both hunters and landowners round out the updates, giving new users a clearer, faster path to understanding how the HLRBO platform works and what it offers.

A Decade of Groundwork

Founded in Brainerd, Minnesota by Heath Schubert and brother Greg — a duck hunter who lost access to private land and couldn’t find a better way to find more — HLRBO has grown from a side project into the country’s most-used hunting lease marketplace. The platform now counts more than 200,000 registered users, with access to more than 1.5 million acres of land.

The company has operated with a deliberate focus on trust: every lease transacted through HLRBO includes a legally reviewed agreement, integrated insurance, and secure payment processing through its proprietary LandKey™ system. That infrastructure, Schubert says, is what makes the new consumer-facing features possible.

“None of this works without the foundation,” Schubert said. “We’ve spent years making sure that when a hunter shakes a landowner’s hand on our platform, it actually means something. Now we’re making it a lot easier to get to that handshake.”

Looking Ahead

HLRBO says this release is the beginning of a broader 2026 product push. The company has signaled additional feature announcements in the weeks ahead, with deeper dives into each new capability rolling out across its channels. The platform is available at hlrbo.com and in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

About HLRBO

HLRBO (Hunting Land Rentals By Owner) is the premier online marketplace for hunting leases, connecting private landowners with vetted hunters across the U.S. and Canada. Founded in 2015, HLRBO serves a community of more than 200,000 users with tools for listing, discovery, secure payments, legal agreements, and integrated insurance — making it easier than ever to find the right land, or the right hunter, for any season. More at HLRBO’s blog: https://www.hlrbo.com/news.