Invest In Land – Get Dirt Rich

[00:00:03]
You have found

[00:00:03]
Authentic Business Adventures, the business
program that brings you the

[00:00:11]
the struggles, stories, and triumphant successes of business owners across the land.

[00:00:13]
We are coming to you locally and underwritten by the Bank of Sun Prairie.

[00:00:14]
If you’re listening to this on the web

[00:00:16]
out, if you could do this, a huge solid,
give a thumbs up subscribe, and of course,

[00:00:20]
share it with all your
entrepreneurial friends.

[00:00:22]
My name is James Kademan,
and Authentic Business Adventures is

[00:00:25]
brought to you by Calls on Call,
Draw in Customers Business Coaching.

[00:00:29]
Well, as the The Bold Business Book.

[00:00:31]
Now I’m excited because this is all about

[00:00:34]
real estate investing, which is
something that I’ve dabbled in

[00:00:38]
we’ll call it on the commercial end,
but I love talking to experts about it

[00:00:42]
because in the end, it’s freedom,
and it’s kind of fun.

[00:00:45]
So we have Mark Podolsky,
the Land Geek, with us.

[00:00:49]
So, Mark, how are you doing today?

[00:00:51]
James Kademan. Pulse is normal.

[00:00:53]
Respiration is fine.

[00:00:54]
Thanks so much for having me.

[00:00:56]
Hey, man, that’s all good.

[00:00:57]
So tell me the land geek.

[00:01:00]
Tell us what is the land geek?

[00:01:02]
So basically, what I do is
I personally buy and sell raw land.

[00:01:10]
And then the Land Geek teaches
people how to buy and sell raw land.

[00:01:14]
But we do it for a specific purpose.

[00:01:18]
And my mission in life is to help people

[00:01:20]
get out of what I call solo economic
dependency, which means if you’re not

[00:01:25]
personally working,
you’re not making any money.

[00:01:27]
Think if you have a W-2 job.
Sure.

[00:01:29]
If you’re a freelancer,
if you’re a solopreneur,

[00:01:32]
if you’re a high income,
or a doctor, a lawyer, a dentist.

[00:01:36]
Right.
Think of.

[00:01:37]
Let’s just pick on the dentist.

[00:01:38]
Their hands aren’t someone’s mouth.

[00:01:40]
They’re not generating any income.

[00:01:42]
They have solo economic dependency,
and you don’t scale.

[00:01:46]
All right, so your trading time for money.

[00:01:48]
You’re trading time for money.

[00:01:50]
Right.

[00:01:51]
So essentially,
what I want people to do is learn from how

[00:01:57]
I’ve gotten free so I can work when I want
where I want and with whom I want and have

[00:02:03]
your passive income exceed
your fixed expenses.

[00:02:06]
So you’re working because you want to,
not because you have to.

[00:02:09]
And, James, when you’re ready,
I can actually walk you step by,

[00:02:12]
step through the model so
you can do it yourself.

[00:02:15]
That sounds great.

[00:02:16]
So tell me, before we go down that road,
I want to ask you why land.

[00:02:21]
I’ve heard people getting apartments.

[00:02:23]
I’ve heard of commercial real estate

[00:02:24]
property, I’ve heard of flipping houses
and all this kind of stuff.

[00:02:28]
Land, I got to say,
you were the first person that I’ve ever

[00:02:31]
talked to that has ever
been so focused on land.

[00:02:35]
And at first I’m like,
oh, it seems so boring.

[00:02:38]
But just tell us why you
chose to go with land.

[00:02:41]
Well, you’re right.
It is boring.

[00:02:43]
You’re not going to go see
me on HGTV or the DIY.

[00:02:46]
network for flip this land.

[00:02:47]
Look at this dirt!

[00:02:49]
Yeah, picture just raw land.

[00:02:50]
You’re absolutely right.

[00:02:52]
And if you go to a REIA meeting,

[00:02:53]
a real estate investment Association
meeting, 100 people in that room.

[00:02:56]
James, you and I were the only land guys there.

[00:02:58]
99 of them would be flippers,
landlords, and wholesalers.

[00:03:04]
So you’re absolutely right.

[00:03:05]
And the reason that no one talks about raw
land in my model is that it’s not sexy.

[00:03:15]
All right.

[00:03:18]
So what I like about raw land is that

[00:03:22]
I’m the kind of person that when something
goes out in my house, I call the handyman.

[00:03:26]
So I have no interest in meeting
contractors or subcontractors at a house

[00:03:32]
to fix it, because I don’t know how
much is something to be or not, right?

[00:03:38]
It also doesn’t scale,
so I can’t do deals.

[00:03:42]
I live in Phoenix.

[00:03:43]
I can’t start flipping houses or
doing fix and flips or landlording.

[00:03:48]
I wouldn’t feel comfortable
with it in other states.

[00:03:50]
I’d only have to be my general area,
and I’d be stuck.

[00:03:56]
So land scales.

[00:03:58]
I buy land all throughout the country,
and I don’t have to see it.

[00:04:03]
I buy it site unseen.

[00:04:04]
I’ll walk you through how I do that.

[00:04:06]
And then what’s great about land is that
it’s the only thing that lasts forever.

[00:04:11]
Ted Turner has a great quote by land.

[00:04:13]
It’s the only thing that lasts forever.

[00:04:15]
Styrofoam is a close second.

[00:04:16]
It lasts a long time.

[00:04:19]
But land is the only
thing that lasts forever.

[00:04:20]
So you’re talking about
this generational asset.

[00:04:23]
Nothing to maintain, nothing to protect.

[00:04:26]
You can’t destroy it.
You can burn it.

[00:04:28]
But eventually it will grow back.

[00:04:31]
No one called me at 3:00 in the morning
saying, Mark, my land is leaking.

[00:04:35]
Come fix me.
Come help me.

[00:04:38]
So that’s the other reason.

[00:04:40]
And then the challenges,
and I’ll walk you through it is

[00:04:43]
well, if land is still great, well,

[00:04:46]
you talk to financial experts say,
don’t buy the land.

[00:04:48]
It’s negative cash flow.

[00:04:50]
You hold it, you pay taxes,
and maybe it depreciates in value.

[00:04:54]
Maybe it doesn’t.
It’s a terrible business model.

[00:04:56]
They’re 100%.
Right.

[00:04:58]
But the way I do it, it’s a one time sale.

[00:05:01]
You get recurring passive income every

[00:05:03]
single month without any renters,
rehabs, renovations or roads.

[00:05:10]
I like it.

[00:05:12]
So tell me, how did you stumble upon this?

[00:05:15]
Was it something that you saw?

[00:05:16]
Somebody had this idea,
or is this just an.

[00:05:20]
Rewind the tape to 2000,
and I was a miserable micromanaged

[00:05:25]
45 minute
commute to working back investment banker

[00:05:28]
specializing in mergers and acquisitions
with private equity groups.

[00:05:32]
All right.
It got so bad for me, James,

[00:05:37]
so I wouldn’t get the Sunday Blues.

[00:05:39]
All right, anticipating
Monday coming around.

[00:05:41]
I’d get the Friday Blues,

[00:05:43]
anticipating the weekend going by really
fast and be back at work on Monday.

[00:05:48]
All right.
So my firm hires this guy.

[00:05:50]
He’s telling me that as a side hustle,
he’s buying raw land,

[00:05:54]
he’s flipping it online, and he’s
making a 300% return on his investment.

[00:05:59]
But, James, I’m looking
at companies all day long.

[00:06:01]
And a great company.
Great.

[00:06:03]
Has 15% EBITA margins for free cash flow.
Right.

[00:06:07]
Average company is 10%, and I’m looking
at companies all day long, less than 10%.

[00:06:12]
So of course, I don’t believe in.

[00:06:13]
I’ve got three grand
saved up for car repairs.

[00:06:16]
I go to New Mexico with them.

[00:06:17]
I buy up ten half acre parcels,
an average price of $300.

[00:06:21]
I flip them online and they sell
for an average price of $200, 300%.

[00:06:27]
It worked.
Wow.

[00:06:28]
Yeah, I know.
So I took all that money,

[00:06:30]
went to another auction,
which is where I live in Arizona.

[00:06:34]
And there’s no one in the room.
It’s 2000.

[00:06:36]
I buy up lots of acreage for nothing.

[00:06:38]
And over the next six months, I sold all
that land, and I made over $90,000 cash.

[00:06:44]
I go to my wife.

[00:06:46]
I say, Honey, I’m going to quit my job

[00:06:49]
and become a full time land investor,
and she’s pregnant.

[00:06:52]
And she’s like, Absolutely not.

[00:06:54]
So I said, okay, that’s awesome.

[00:06:56]
So it took 18 months to land investing

[00:06:59]
income to exceed
the investment banking income.

[00:07:01]
And then I quit.

[00:07:02]
And I’ve been doing it full
time ever since I’ve done.

[00:07:04]
As of today, over 6000 transactions,
6000 transactions, 6000.

[00:07:11]
How many of those were you
in person to actually see

[00:07:15]
handful of them?

[00:07:17]
Wow.
That’s crazy.

[00:07:19]
That’s amazing.
Yes.

[00:07:23]
I tell you, it’s kind of funny because I

[00:07:24]
just closed on this property that I’m
in now commercial FlexPACE,

[00:07:29]
and I’d be in person at the title
company signing 5 million documents.

[00:07:34]
And all I can think is,
this is so archaic.

[00:07:38]
Why are we still doing this?

[00:07:40]
We have computers now,
a worldwide Internet and all that jazz.

[00:07:43]
And I talked to someone like you,
and you’re like,

[00:07:45]
I didn’t even see the dirt that I bought,
but I bought it, and then I sold it.

[00:07:51]
I think the feature is a smart
contract on the blockchain.

[00:07:55]
That would be nice.
That’s cool.

[00:07:57]
So how do you find properties?

[00:08:00]
Let’s start there.
Okay.

[00:08:02]
So, James, where do you live?

[00:08:04]
I live in just outside of Madison,
Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin.

[00:08:08]
Okay.
Great.

[00:08:09]
Let’s just be honest, James, right?

[00:08:10]
Nobody wakes up and thinks themselves.
Boys.

[00:08:12]
Raw landed in Wisconsin.

[00:08:15]
Unless you live in Wisconsin even then.

[00:08:19]
Yeah.

[00:08:21]
So we’re going to focus on the Southwest,

[00:08:24]
Nevada, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado,
Arizona, where everybody’s moving now?

[00:08:31]
Where everybody’s moving?
California.

[00:08:33]
Maybe a little bit
of Northwest Washington, Oregon, right.

[00:08:36]
Maybe Utah, low, Texas.

[00:08:37]
Better weather.
Yeah.

[00:08:39]
Better weather, Florida.

[00:08:40]
So these are the Sunshine States
that are fast growing States.

[00:08:43]
This is where the majority of the
population would want to be or invest.

[00:08:47]
So that’s the first thing is we want

[00:08:49]
to just go to the good sort
of areas that they want to invest.

[00:08:54]
The second thing is that we want to find

[00:08:57]
someone who’s distressed
financially and has no

[00:09:03]
what I would call emotional
attachment to that raw land.

[00:09:07]
Okay.
I would assume.

[00:09:09]
But like I say, I got a list of people

[00:09:11]
that own real property
and say, accounting.

[00:09:14]
Texas.

[00:09:15]
And I say, oh, there’s James Kademan
lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

[00:09:18]
He has $200 back taxes.

[00:09:20]
So you’re advertising these
two important things to me.

[00:09:22]
No emotional attachment.

[00:09:23]
You’re distressed financially in a weird
way because you even paid your taxes.

[00:09:27]
And as a result, the County Treasurer
keeps sending a notice to St.

[00:09:29]
James, you don’t pay your taxes.

[00:09:31]
You’re going to lose this property
tax deed or tax lien investor.

[00:09:35]
So all I’m going to do is look

[00:09:37]
at the comparable sales on your ten acre
parcel for the last twelve to 18 months.

[00:09:42]
I’m going to take the lowest
comparable sale and divide by four.

[00:09:46]
And that’s going to get me what

[00:09:48]
Warren Buffett would call
a 300% margin of safety.

[00:09:52]
Yeah.

[00:09:52]
So I’m going to send you
an actual offer on your property.

[00:09:55]
So just easy numbers,
the lowest comparable sales, $10,000.

[00:09:58]
I’m going to send you an offer for $2,500.
All right.

[00:10:01]
You accept it because for you,

[00:10:03]
you’re never going to go out
and see that property again.

[00:10:05]
And you owe back taxes.

[00:10:07]
Now, in reality,
3% to 5% of people accept my quote,

[00:10:11]
unquote top dollar offer,
but you accept it.

[00:10:15]
So now I have to go through due
diligence or indepth research.

[00:10:19]
I have to confirm you
still own the property.

[00:10:21]
I have to confirm
that taxes are only $200.

[00:10:23]
I have to make sure there’s been
no breaks in the chain of title.

[00:10:26]
There’s no liens or incumbents.

[00:10:27]
I have this whole big property checklist,

[00:10:29]
and I outsource it to my team
in the Philippines.

[00:10:32]
I pay about $11, and they’re connected
to an American title company.

[00:10:36]
Now, if I was investing $5,000 or more,

[00:10:39]
then I would basically close
traditionally through a title company.

[00:10:43]
But during that research,
I’m getting flat maps.

[00:10:46]
I’m getting aerial maps.

[00:10:47]
I’m getting satellite maps.

[00:10:49]
I’m finding out what’s compelling about
the property,

[00:10:52]
how close you are from services,
what the roads are like,

[00:10:56]
what the topography is like, is there
legal access, ingress and egress.

[00:11:01]
And so I’m getting this whole checklist.

[00:11:02]
So everything checks out.

[00:11:04]
I buy the property from you for $2,500.

[00:11:07]
Now I’m going to sell this
property 30 days or less.

[00:11:09]
I’m going to make a cash flow,
just like a rental home.

[00:11:12]
So I have a built in.
Best buyer.

[00:11:15]
Do you know who it is?

[00:11:16]
No, it’s the neighbors.

[00:11:19]
The neighbors.

[00:11:20]
I’m going to send out neighbor letters
saying, hey, here’s your opportunity.

[00:11:23]
Protect your Privacy.
Protect your views.

[00:11:25]
Know your neighbor.

[00:11:27]
So oftentimes the neighbors will buy it.

[00:11:29]
Now, if they pass,
I’ll go to my buyers list.

[00:11:32]
My buyers list passes.
I go to the website you may have heard of.

[00:11:35]
It’s called Craigslist 10th most
traffic website in United States.

[00:11:38]
I go to a smaller one called Meta or
Facebook by groups and the marketplace.

[00:11:44]
And then I’m going to go to the landmoto.

[00:11:47]
Com, landsfamerica.

[00:11:49]
Com, landedfarm.
Com landflip.

[00:11:51]
Com.
Landhub.

[00:11:52]
Com.
These are platforms.

[00:11:54]
Buy and sell raw land.

[00:11:55]
But the way that I’m going to sell it
is I’m going to make it irresistible.

[00:11:59]
You can actually control this ten acre

[00:12:02]
parcel that used to be owned
by the famous James Cadence.

[00:12:08]
Right.
You can own this ten acres.

[00:12:10]
All you have to do is
to put $2,500 down payment.

[00:12:14]
And then I’m going to make a car payment

[00:12:16]
and make the monthly payments of $399
a month for the next 84 months.

[00:12:20]
So I’m going to get my money
out on the down payment.

[00:12:23]
And then I make it a passive income
stream of 399 a month at 9% interest.

[00:12:28]
In the next 84 months, I have to deal with
renters, rehabs, renovations or rodents.

[00:12:33]
And because I’m not dealing with a tenant,
I’m exempt from DoddFrank Raspa

[00:12:38]
and Safe Act, all this owners
real estate legislation.

[00:12:42]
So the game is,
can we create enough of these land notes

[00:12:45]
where our passive income
exceeds our fixed expenses?

[00:12:48]
And now that we’re working because we
want to not because we have to clever.

[00:12:53]
Oh, that is genius.

[00:12:54]
So you’re essentially self financing it.

[00:12:56]
But you’re not as paid
for with a down payment.

[00:13:00]
That is just a side of genius.

[00:13:03]
It’s even better because it’s 90%

[00:13:05]
automated with software
and inexpensive virtual assistance.

[00:13:09]
We can always make more money,
but we can’t get more time, right.

[00:13:13]
Oh, that’s cool.

[00:13:14]
That’s cool.

[00:13:16]
So let me ask you because I’m going
to look at the poke the holes.

[00:13:19]
Right.
Sure.

[00:13:20]
What is the longest time that you’ve had
to sit on a piece of property that you

[00:13:23]
just could not get rid
of in recent memory?

[00:13:26]
90 days.

[00:13:29]
There’s nothing.

[00:13:33]
30 days or less.

[00:13:34]
I get antsy.

[00:13:37]
Something’s got to change.

[00:13:38]
All right.
Interesting.

[00:13:40]
That is cool.

[00:13:43]
So then let’s say,
how do you find the property?

[00:13:45]
You got to look at all
the dirt all over the country.

[00:13:50]
No, I don’t look at it until somebody

[00:13:53]
raises their hands because
I want to sell it.

[00:13:55]
I’m going to go to the county assessor.
Okay.

[00:13:57]
And I’m going to get
the real property list.

[00:13:59]
So everybody owns property in the county,
and then I’m going to do a scrub.

[00:14:04]
Let’s say, by use code.

[00:14:05]
So it’s VL for vacant land.

[00:14:07]
So now I just have vacant land,

[00:14:08]
and we’ll do one more scrub by assessor’s
parcel number, APN or subdivision and kind

[00:14:14]
of acreage, because if I send an offer
the same offer as somebody with 40 acres

[00:14:19]
as five acres, the 40 acre person is going
to send me back glitter in the mail.

[00:14:23]
So I want to make sure I’ve
got my pricing matrix.

[00:14:25]
Right.
And then I’ll send out my offers.

[00:14:28]
All right. And when you send an offer,

[00:14:30]
are you typically calling
them up? Is it email?

[00:14:33]
No, it’s all automated.

[00:14:34]
I’m going to upload it to my software, and
it’s going to send it out automatically.

[00:14:39]
Oh, that’s cool.

[00:14:40]
Yeah.

[00:14:42]
So you’re not licking stamps
or anything like that.

[00:14:44]
No, no stamp licking.

[00:14:46]
Oh, that is clever.
Yeah.

[00:14:48]
And then I imagine you have some way
to make it as easy as possible

[00:14:53]
for the person that has that land
and receives that request.

[00:14:56]
Absolutely.
Respond to you saying, yes, sir.

[00:15:00]
Yeah, easily.

[00:15:01]
They can make a counter.

[00:15:02]
They can just email back
that offer or scan it, email back.

[00:15:06]
They can mail it back.

[00:15:08]
They can Fax it back
for those three people.

[00:15:10]
That Fax machine.
All right.

[00:15:12]
So we make it easy.

[00:15:13]
Nice. So how often do
people count or what?

[00:15:16]
You send them about 10% of the time.

[00:15:19]
Okay.

[00:15:22]
I’d say 5% do what we call a Meek counter.

[00:15:25]
So they counter like they just want $500

[00:15:28]
more and then be like,
okay, there’s seller.

[00:15:31]
Sometimes they do.

[00:15:33]
I call it an aggressive counter
where it’s like $100,000 more.

[00:15:37]
In which case we’ll say you should have

[00:15:40]
said you want $10 million more
because it makes you feel better.

[00:15:43]
Say your property is worth 10 million
instead of $100,000 because the same odds

[00:15:49]
of getting the same odds
getting 10 million.

[00:15:51]
Right.
Got you.

[00:15:53]
Alright.

[00:15:54]
So you send out 100, whatever request
or whatever you want to call them.

[00:15:59]
And two to 3% actually
come back 3% come back 3%.

[00:16:04]
Right.
And that’s a really important metric,

[00:16:05]
because if it’s under 3%,
I know it came in too low for the market.

[00:16:08]
All right.

[00:16:08]
And if it’s over 5%, I get nervous and we
got to retrade and renegotiate too high.

[00:16:16]
All right.
If it’s over 5% over 5%.

[00:16:20]
If everyone’s saying, oh, yeah.

[00:16:21]
I’ll take that.

[00:16:22]
Something’s going on here.
Oh, interesting.

[00:16:24]
So even if you’re like 5%
still seems low to me.

[00:16:28]
How did you come up with that?

[00:16:30]
If you’re a housing person,
it’s an incredibly high response rate.

[00:16:34]
Is it really?
Oh, yeah.

[00:16:36]
Okay.

[00:16:37]
I’m not in this world.
So that’s why we’re talking.

[00:16:39]
Oh, yeah.
It’s really low.

[00:16:41]
All right.
Like zero something.

[00:16:45]
Oh, okay.
Yeah.

[00:16:47]
So three to 5% is a tremendous rate.

[00:16:49]
All right.

[00:16:51]
So that means that you have to send out.

[00:16:53]
I imagine.
What are you doing?

[00:16:55]
Like sending out ten a day or 50 a day?
Yeah.

[00:16:58]
You can do software.
Let you do drip.

[00:17:00]
We recommend doing 20 or 30 a day and you

[00:17:03]
can handle your due diligence
as it comes back in.

[00:17:05]
And it’s pretty easy to do.
All right.

[00:17:07]
So then in any given week,
you’re getting a couple of responses.

[00:17:10]
Yeah.

[00:17:10]
You get a couple of responses
and your team can handle it.

[00:17:13]
Oh, that’s clever.

[00:17:14]
That is clever.

[00:17:15]
So how much time in a given week do you
have to actually stick in your business?

[00:17:20]
So I personally work about 2 hours
a month in my land investment business.

[00:17:26]
That’s awesome.

[00:17:27]
2 hours a month.

[00:17:29]
About a half hour a week.

[00:17:31]
And what I’m doing is
looking at the numbers.

[00:17:34]
I have a call with my acquisition manager

[00:17:36]
who manages the business,
and we just see how many offers went out?

[00:17:39]
How many deals are pending?

[00:17:41]
How many deals closed?
Are there any issues?

[00:17:43]
The problem is when I wake up and I have

[00:17:47]
an idea and I have Vox,
my acquisition manager.

[00:17:50]
It’s like a walkie talkie app.

[00:17:52]
And what if we do that?

[00:17:53]
So everything’s working,
and then I break something.

[00:17:56]
But other than that, yeah, I’m really not.

[00:18:02]
I’m the CEO or the chairman.

[00:18:05]
Actually, through the puppet master.

[00:18:08]
Yeah, I’m doing the strategy.
All right.

[00:18:11]
That is cool.

[00:18:12]
So how big is your domestic team?

[00:18:15]
So domestic team is two people.
Okay.

[00:18:18]
And then we have a team in Jamaica
and a team in the Philippines.

[00:18:22]
Oh, that’s super cool. Now,

[00:18:23]
that leads to the question,
how do you find a team beyond the ocean

[00:18:28]
here? How do you find a team
in the Philippines or Jamaica?

[00:18:32]
You can go to a service
like Landvaforyou dot com.

[00:18:36]
And they’re already trained VAS
that know how to run a land business.

[00:18:41]
There’s a bunch of these
companies like Landmasters us.

[00:18:44]
There’s a whole bunch of them.
All right.

[00:18:46]
You can do that.
Or you can go on Upwork dot com or Fiverr.

[00:18:49]
Com.
Yeah.

[00:18:50]
And you can train somebody how to do that.

[00:18:52]
All right.

[00:18:53]
That’s cool.

[00:18:54]
And then let me ask you about title

[00:18:56]
companies, because those
to me are just like.

[00:18:58]
Why do we still have these? I know.

[00:19:02]
Maybe it’s just my frustration that limits
me in the real estate because I see

[00:19:06]
the title company is like,
oh, we have computers.

[00:19:08]
We shouldn’t have to deal with this.

[00:19:10]
But tell me, how do you
find a good title company?

[00:19:13]
And then are you always using
the same title company, even locally?

[00:19:16]
Here something like that.
I’m always trying to use First American.

[00:19:19]
Okay.
Yeah.

[00:19:21]
Because I’ve got a relationship with them.

[00:19:23]
They get some great pricing.

[00:19:24]
And so we’re always trying to stick
to the same title company.

[00:19:28]
All right.
That’s very cool.

[00:19:29]
So you’re not necessarily having to use
the title company in wherever the land is?

[00:19:34]
No,

[00:19:38]
first Americans.
It’s every state.

[00:19:39]
But let’s say that the seller says, hey,

[00:19:43]
I want to close your title,
and I want to use this title company.

[00:19:46]
Then they say, Fine,
but you pay for the title fees.

[00:19:49]
All right.

[00:19:55]
That is cool.

[00:19:56]
So you’ve been doing this for the better
part of 21, 21 years, 21 years.

[00:20:01]
That’s cool.
Now, how does your wife feel about it now?

[00:20:04]
Well, she loves it now.

[00:20:06]
Okay.

[00:20:07]
She’s come around.

[00:20:08]
Yeah, she’s come around.

[00:20:10]
Oh, that’s funny.

[00:20:11]
So then tell me about that.

[00:20:13]
You have the land you sell it.

[00:20:16]
Is there any, like you’re just feeding

[00:20:18]
that machine who keeps track of the
payments and all that kind of stuff?

[00:20:22]
Is that software we use software?
Yeah.

[00:20:24]
So we use a software called Geekpay IO.

[00:20:27]
It’s a set and forget it system.
All right.

[00:20:28]
And it keeps track of all of it.

[00:20:30]
And is this software you had written
or something that you found.

[00:20:33]
Yeah.

[00:20:36]
If you ever watch Tribute
enthusiasm, I have.

[00:20:39]
Yeah.
Okay.

[00:20:40]
So last season, Larry created a spy store.

[00:20:44]
Do you remember that?
I don’t.

[00:20:46]
I’m not a frequent watcher.

[00:20:48]
Okay.

[00:20:50]
Larry David goes to this guy’s
coffee shop called Mocha Joe.

[00:20:55]
Yeah.
In Moka Joe.

[00:20:56]
He treats him poorly.

[00:20:57]
And so I opened up
Latte Larry’s right next door.

[00:21:01]
So I opened up my own
version of Latte Larries.

[00:21:04]
Oh, that’s awesome.
Yeah.

[00:21:05]
A few years ago.

[00:21:07]
Was it tough to find someone to code?

[00:21:09]
It was very tough.

[00:21:11]
I don’t recommend it because if you’re
not a developer, it’s like a dentist.

[00:21:16]
Only another dentist can tell you that
dentist did a good job in your mouth.

[00:21:20]
Right.

[00:21:23]
So it’s been a struggle.

[00:21:24]
But I think the code is solid, and
we have very few support issues.

[00:21:30]
That’s cool.

[00:21:31]
That is so funny that you say that about

[00:21:33]
the software thing,
because I have never heard someone

[00:21:36]
that has had software built
that has said, oh, my gosh.

[00:21:40]
It’s magical.

[00:21:41]
It’s the best experience of my life.

[00:21:43]
No one ever says that.

[00:21:47]
If I wasn’t so enraged by how I was
treated, I never would have done it.

[00:21:52]
So it initially started because
another software company.

[00:21:55]
Yeah, because software company.

[00:21:58]
I was a really great customer,
and they started nickel and diming.

[00:22:01]
And I looked at that,
and I said, Wait a second.

[00:22:04]
I can do thisnice.

[00:22:07]
I love it.

[00:22:09]
There’s one thing that entrepreneurs have

[00:22:11]
in common is that they
always have another idea.

[00:22:14]
Exactly.
Constantly.

[00:22:15]
That’s super cool.

[00:22:17]
So let’s move into your coaching now.

[00:22:20]
Landgate coaching.

[00:22:21]
This is essentially where you train

[00:22:23]
people, how to do what
you’re doing, right.

[00:22:26]
All right.
And how is this live?

[00:22:28]
Is this remote?

[00:22:30]
Are you getting involved
in the transactions?

[00:22:33]
Yes.
Yes.

[00:22:34]
And yes.

[00:22:36]
It just depends on
which level they go into.

[00:22:40]
So think about it like this.

[00:22:44]
If you’re going to go work
out at the gym, right.

[00:22:47]
There’s a certain percentage of people
that have discipline that will get up

[00:22:51]
early in the morning and work out, and
they’ve got good form and they’ll do it.

[00:22:56]
All right.

[00:22:56]
There’s other people
that want to do a group class.

[00:23:01]
They want that person who’s really fit

[00:23:03]
and knows what they’re
doing and helping them.

[00:23:05]
And then there’s people that want

[00:23:07]
to invest in personal training, one on
one, they want that personal attention.

[00:23:10]
So we offer all of that.

[00:23:12]
All right.

[00:23:13]
Nice.

[00:23:15]
And now this is a question that I like

[00:23:17]
to have for a lot of coaches
because we’ve seen all kinds.

[00:23:20]
How many people that come into any type
of coaching program that you have have

[00:23:25]
actually gone through the whole
thing and been successful?

[00:23:28]
No info not expected to be 100%.

[00:23:31]
Yeah, of course.

[00:23:33]
I don’t know how people define success.

[00:23:37]
Okay.

[00:23:39]
It’s a tough question for an answer.

[00:23:40]
I will say that we have many people

[00:23:43]
that come through and
they quit their jobs,

[00:23:47]
their spouse quit their job so they
could spend more time with their family.

[00:23:50]
That’s fine.

[00:23:50]
They reach the point where they are no
longer have so economic dependence.

[00:23:55]
All right.
But somebody who has $2,000 a month

[00:23:58]
and passive income that might really
move the needle for them in their life.

[00:24:02]
And someone else might need 25,000 a month

[00:24:05]
passive income because
they live in New York.

[00:24:07]
All right.

[00:24:07]
And they’re a high income earner
and they want to replace their income.

[00:24:11]
So it just all depends on that
person and their situation.

[00:24:14]
I will say, though, that people that do
it, they do really well with it.

[00:24:22]
That is cool. So if you were to do
something different 20 years ago

[00:24:28]
with the experience that you have now,

[00:24:30]
what are some things that you would have
done differently back then that you

[00:24:33]
learned over the course of a couple
of decades of doing this?

[00:24:36]
Well, I would say that first
thing I would have got a mentor.

[00:24:40]
Okay.
Yeah.

[00:24:41]
Because it wasn’t that I had a mentor.

[00:24:43]
So I’m doing really
well working on my own.

[00:24:46]
I’m going to Kinkos.

[00:24:47]
I’m getting maps, I’m talking to the
sellers, and I’m talking to the buyers.

[00:24:51]
I’ve got one person
helping me with offers.

[00:24:55]
I’m doing my own due diligence.

[00:24:57]
I’m busy.

[00:24:59]
I’m making really good money in the land
business compared to investment banking.

[00:25:04]
All right.

[00:25:04]
So I go to coffee with my buddy Worry,
and he sold his company for $360,000,000.

[00:25:10]
And I’m kind of bragging to him about what

[00:25:12]
I did, and it’s like, Stop,
don’t call yourself an entrepreneur.

[00:25:16]
You’re insulting me.

[00:25:17]
What do you mean?

[00:25:19]
Like, you got yourself a better
job than what you had.

[00:25:21]
He’s like, but it’s still a job.

[00:25:23]
He’s like, if you die tomorrow,

[00:25:24]
what happens to your family
and the so called land business.

[00:25:28]
He’s like, who’s doing all the work?

[00:25:29]
I’m like, Man, I am.

[00:25:32]
So then he’s like, you got to process your

[00:25:33]
systems software,
guys to start delegating.

[00:25:36]
And so that’s what I
would say from day one.

[00:25:39]
I had that mindset like,
the Emeth, like, Michael Gerber.

[00:25:42]
Yeah, that would have been great.
I didn’t have it.

[00:25:45]
I had what Chris Tucker would
call Superman syndrome.

[00:25:49]
I’m going to do it all.

[00:25:51]
I’m going to do it all I could do it.

[00:25:53]
That is awesome.
All right.

[00:25:55]
So then I imagine that was
a light switch flip for you.

[00:25:58]
And now you’re like, oh,
I got to change my approach.

[00:26:01]
Well, now my whole approach is
I can always make more money.

[00:26:05]
I can’t get more time.
I mean, I won’t even park there’s.

[00:26:08]
Valley parking boom.

[00:26:09]
I’m saving myself time.
Nice.

[00:26:11]
So I mean, anything that I
can do to save time.

[00:26:15]
Software tool person.

[00:26:19]
I’m always reevaluating, what did I do
that day and what’s my hourly rate.

[00:26:24]
So if my aspirational hourly rate is

[00:26:26]
$5,000 an hour, I’m not doing
anything less than $5,000 in an hour.

[00:26:31]
Nice.
Yeah.

[00:26:33]
That is cool.

[00:26:34]
That means waiting in line.

[00:26:36]
Well, if I have to wait in line
because I’m a human being, right.

[00:26:41]
I guess I’ll have to wait in line.

[00:26:43]
But otherwise, if I didn’t have to wait
in line, if there was a fast pass

[00:26:46]
for a grocery store,
I wouldn’t wait in line if I go to Disney

[00:26:50]
with my kids,
we do the fastest thing when I actually

[00:26:53]
buy software that will show me the fastest
route to take to get through Disney.

[00:26:59]
That’s cool.

[00:27:01]
Yeah, that’s cool.

[00:27:02]
Fast at a grocery store,
you may be onto something there.

[00:27:05]
I know.
Right.

[00:27:06]
I would definitely do that.

[00:27:08]
So any kind of line or anything
I can avoid to waste time.

[00:27:11]
All right.

[00:27:13]
I’ll do it.
That is cool.

[00:27:15]
Or save time.

[00:27:16]
So what is some advice that you would give

[00:27:18]
to people that were looking into getting
into real estate investing?

[00:27:22]
Let’s start broadly.

[00:27:23]
And then in land investing specifically.

[00:27:25]
So I think broadly,
you need to have the Zig Ziglar mindset.

[00:27:31]
All right.
Which means that if you’ll do the next

[00:27:33]
three to five years, not three to five
months, the next three to five years.

[00:27:37]
But other people won’t do you’ll be able

[00:27:40]
to do for the rest of your life
what other people can’t do.

[00:27:43]
So if you’re really dedicated to total

[00:27:44]
freedom, then you are going to be
completely focused on doing the tasks

[00:27:52]
that you have to do to get there
and let go of the results.

[00:27:59]
Right.
So that’s what I would say.

[00:28:02]
You have to have grit.

[00:28:03]
All right.

[00:28:07]
I’d give that advice for anybody to start

[00:28:09]
any new venture, whether it’s land,
whether it’s real estate, whether it’s

[00:28:13]
any kind of business, because you have
to be comfortable being uncomfortable.

[00:28:18]
You’re not going to be great
at anything at any one point in time.

[00:28:23]
And I think that any entrepreneur
needs to have three things.

[00:28:26]
They have to have belief.

[00:28:27]
They have to have skills,
and they have to have the traits.

[00:28:30]
So belief is, I believe I can do this.

[00:28:33]
If Mark can do it,
he’s not a rocket scientist.

[00:28:35]
Clearly, I believe I can do this.
Other people can do this.

[00:28:39]
I can do this number one.

[00:28:41]
Then you have to develop the skills,
which is simple to do.

[00:28:43]
You can get a mentor, you can get
training, you can watch YouTube videos.

[00:28:46]
It doesn’t matter,

[00:28:47]
but you start developing the skills,
you get your reps, and you start working

[00:28:50]
in the land of the more woo
woo part of it are the traits.

[00:28:54]
All right.

[00:28:55]
So think about the traits
of an entrepreneur.

[00:28:58]
They have to be flexible.

[00:28:59]
They have to be adaptable.

[00:29:01]
They have to be collaborative.

[00:29:03]
You have to be a person that other
people want to work with.

[00:29:06]
If you’re a tyrant, you don’t
have the traits to really grow.

[00:29:12]
Now, we know people who are
entrepreneurs who are famous tyrants.

[00:29:17]
Yeah, sure.

[00:29:18]
I could argue that they probably got

[00:29:20]
really lucky they got
their company public.

[00:29:22]
There’s such a great

[00:29:24]
idea that they are paying their
people so much to put up with them.

[00:29:29]
Yes, that they couldn’t do that.

[00:29:33]
You and I are not Steve Jobs.

[00:29:35]
I was just he was the first one that came
to mind or second one that came to mind.

[00:29:39]
Yeah.
The guy was a jerk.

[00:29:41]
You could have been a jerk.

[00:29:42]
Elon Musk might be a jerk.

[00:29:44]
He’s got a huge purpose.

[00:29:45]
People work for Tesla.

[00:29:46]
They’re saving the planet.

[00:29:48]
So again, I’d say that’s an edge case.

[00:29:52]
Most of us have to have traits
where people want to work with us.

[00:29:57]
And we also have those traits when things

[00:29:59]
are tough, that we have that persistence,
we have that we have a certain amount

[00:30:03]
of mindfulness and awareness
that this, too, shall pass.

[00:30:07]
Is that tolerance of discomfort

[00:30:11]
or arguably a desire for it? Because we
know that discomfort is probably growing

[00:30:16]
pains or should be growing pains
if you’re headed that direction.

[00:30:20]
Yeah.
I mean, think about your own life.

[00:30:23]
I bet you the best teacher
you had was the toughest.

[00:30:28]
Okay.
I would bet when you look back on your

[00:30:30]
life, the things that you grew the most
from whether the times when you quote

[00:30:34]
unquote, the most uncomfortable
or quote, unquote suffering.

[00:30:37]
Right.

[00:30:38]
But in the moment, you think,
oh, this is terrible.

[00:30:40]
And then you look back like, oh, I look
how much I grew from that experience.

[00:30:43]
You know what?

[00:30:44]
It’s funny you say that because I can
remember getting fired from a job.

[00:30:47]
I got fired from a job because

[00:30:51]
I had read an article in a magazine
that said, if you’re not happy with your

[00:30:54]
job, but you still like the industry,
go after your boss’s job.

[00:30:59]
So I did that in a 20 person company.

[00:31:02]
I went after my boss’job,
and I was not shy about it at all.

[00:31:06]
I was very open about it.

[00:31:08]
And the guy whose job I was going after,
he was kind of a drunk.

[00:31:11]
So I’m like, this is
going to be easy layup.

[00:31:13]
But it turns out he’s a drunk
that likes to get drunk with the boss.

[00:31:18]
Right.

[00:31:19]
I got canned from that job for attitude.

[00:31:21]
And I remember that day I was like,
I’m making you guys so much bank.

[00:31:26]
And you guys are, caning me like,

[00:31:27]
this is the dumbest thing
in the world you could possibly do.

[00:31:31]
I remember being so mad that day,

[00:31:33]
but then I looked back and I think,
what if they didn’t fire me?

[00:31:37]
I’d still be in that crap job

[00:31:39]
not knowing that there’s so much
more opportunity in the world,

[00:31:45]
I would have been content.

[00:31:47]
That would have been cool making
my $10 an hour or whatever it was.

[00:31:51]
I was making way back when
it was interesting.

[00:31:54]
And I’m like that’s one of the best
things that could have happened to me.

[00:31:57]
But at the time,

[00:31:59]
I was ready to kill someone.

[00:32:01]
I was so mad.
Yeah.

[00:32:03]
Because you feel like you received
something that wasn’t necessarily earned.

[00:32:11]
Something bad had happened.
Right.

[00:32:14]
Right.

[00:32:14]
And the older you get,
you realize there is no bad or good.

[00:32:18]
No, it’s just how we interpret it correct.

[00:32:21]
It’s not the facts,
but the reaction to the facts, right?

[00:32:24]
Yeah.
That’s great.

[00:32:26]
I love it.

[00:32:27]
I want to shift gears a little
bit to the landscape.

[00:32:30]
Say, we got someone who’s flipping burgers
or something like that, and you’re like,

[00:32:34]
hey, man, you can have all the freedom,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:32:37]
All you got to do is get in this land
thing, and he’s going to be like, Well,

[00:32:41]
James Mark, I have these two nickels,
and I can rub them together.

[00:32:45]
How am I supposed to get started
in this land investing thing?

[00:32:48]
So can you tell me,
is there a minimum dollar amount

[00:32:51]
that people got to have sucked
away under their mattress?

[00:32:54]
Or is there a way to use other
people’s money or something like that?

[00:32:57]
There’s always a way if there’s a will,
there’s a way I start with $3,000.

[00:33:00]
My buddy drank start with $800.

[00:33:02]
We tell people to start with $500.

[00:33:05]
$500 that will get you
to your mailings out.

[00:33:09]
And then from there, because, look,
if I lock up a deal, $0.25 to the dollar,

[00:33:14]
there’s someone else on the other
end that I can wholesale it out.

[00:33:16]
$0.50 for the dollar.

[00:33:17]
I got double my money.
All right.

[00:33:19]
So I don’t even need to buy the property.

[00:33:21]
I can just assign it
over to someone like me.

[00:33:24]
So I want to pause you right there.
Can you explain that a little bit?

[00:33:27]
Sure.

[00:33:27]
So I send you an offer
and you accept it for $2,500.

[00:33:31]
I don’t have two nickels to rub together.

[00:33:33]
I can’t close, but it’s $25 a dollar.

[00:33:36]
So I email a land investment and say, hey,

[00:33:39]
I’ve got this property locked up
for $2,500, and I’ll assign it to you

[00:33:46]
for $5,000 because I know
that you sell it for $10,000.

[00:33:52]
All right.
And you didn’t have to do a mailing.

[00:33:54]
You don’t have to do any of the work.

[00:33:55]
Yeah, I got everything ready for you.
You want to do it?

[00:33:58]
Sure.
I’ll take it.

[00:34:00]
All right.
And is that, like.

[00:34:02]
Legalities and stuff like that?

[00:34:03]
Is that crazy amounts
of paperwork? No, not at all.

[00:34:06]
It’s one piece of paper.
It’s easy.

[00:34:09]
That is cool.

[00:34:10]
That is cool.

[00:34:12]
So essentially, you never had to come
up with that $2,500, correct.

[00:34:17]
You just had to come up with a buyer
that was willing to pay five grand.

[00:34:20]
Right.

[00:34:21]
Another way to do it is what
we call land arbitrage.

[00:34:23]
All right.

[00:34:24]
So let’s say, for example, that you’ve got
a piece of property that you bought for.

[00:34:29]
Let’s say $5,000.
Okay.

[00:34:32]
And the retail price of that is $20,000.
All right.

[00:34:37]
So you go to me and I say, oh, James,
I’d love to buy that property.

[00:34:41]
I don’t have $5,000.

[00:34:44]
Okay.

[00:34:45]
Could you afford $100 a month?

[00:34:48]
Because the market says you could get $500
down on this property and 500 a month.

[00:34:58]
And you kind of show comparables.

[00:35:00]
So I’ll sell it to you for $100,
down $100 a month.

[00:35:05]
And then as long as you make payments,
you’re going to pay me $18,000 over time.

[00:35:10]
But you’ll flip it
to selling house for $500.

[00:35:13]
$500, you’re going to make
the spread of $400 in 400 a month.

[00:35:18]
All right.
And you’ve mitigated your risk,

[00:35:20]
because if you can’t sell it
in 90 days, it’s only out $300.

[00:35:26]
So that’s what we call land arbitrage.

[00:35:28]
All right.

[00:35:29]
That’s cool.

[00:35:30]
And so people can do that for you as well.
All right.

[00:35:33]
Let’s shift into the little fees

[00:35:35]
and the nickel and dime stuff
that you have to deal with.

[00:35:37]
The title work.

[00:35:38]
Any insurance is insurance
involved on land?

[00:35:41]
No,

[00:35:42]
you can do title insurance because it’s a
title company for inexpensive properties.

[00:35:46]
We don’t do insurance.

[00:35:48]
Okay.

[00:35:49]
All right.
What are you insuring?

[00:35:51]
Right.
But otherwise, your fees are your typical

[00:35:54]
title insurance fees where
they do nickel and tie.

[00:35:57]
But there’s not necessarily liability
insurance or something like that on a no.

[00:36:02]
I mean, if you talk to an insurance agent,

[00:36:04]
they’re going to say, oh, what happens
if somebody goes out there on the quad?

[00:36:06]
They break their leg.

[00:36:08]
They’re going to sue you.

[00:36:09]
So the way to mitigate that is if you’re
a homeowner, you get an umbrella policy,

[00:36:13]
general liability policy
for an extra million dollars.

[00:36:17]
Fine.

[00:36:18]
The other way to mitigate it is
do something called a land trust.

[00:36:21]
So you go out on my property,

[00:36:23]
you break your leg, and then you try
to find out who owns the property.

[00:36:26]
Well, it’s another land trust.

[00:36:29]
No attorney will touch it because
they can’t find the owner.

[00:36:32]
All right.

[00:36:34]
Just this document that owns
it just this document.

[00:36:36]
So Where’s the trustee? I don’t know.
All right.

[00:36:40]
Interesting.

[00:36:41]
Yeah.

[00:36:44]
Sometimes I talk to people like you,
and I’m like, this almost seems too easy.

[00:36:50]
It’s simple.

[00:36:51]
Nothing worth doing in life is easy.
Okay.

[00:36:54]
Simple.
Not okay.

[00:36:55]
It’s simple.
It’s a simple model, but nothing is easy.

[00:36:58]
Okay.
All right.

[00:36:59]
So what are some of the pitfalls or

[00:37:00]
complexities that people may run
into that are just out there.

[00:37:06]
And they’ll probably eventually,
after a few transactions, we’ll find.

[00:37:09]
Well, the first one is
there’s 3007 US counties.

[00:37:12]
Where do you start there?

[00:37:15]
So if we’re in Madison, Wisconsin,

[00:37:18]
in the summer and you’re like,
Mark, let’s go fishing.

[00:37:22]
And you see, there’s twelve boats over

[00:37:24]
on this one bank, and they’re
catching fish left and right.

[00:37:26]
And there’s one other boat
way out on the other side.

[00:37:30]
And I said, let’s go to that other
boat way on the other side.

[00:37:35]
There are less boats there.

[00:37:37]
Save me a Mark.

[00:37:38]
Those guys are catching all the fish.

[00:37:40]
That guy’s drinking beer
and not catching anything.

[00:37:43]
So when you first start land investing,
you want to go where the other land

[00:37:48]
investors are, because definitively
there are deals there.

[00:37:51]
All right.
It’s very counterintuitive.

[00:37:54]
So that’s the first pitfall
is knowing where to go.

[00:37:57]
The second one is you
never want to overpay.

[00:37:59]
You’ve got to do your research and know

[00:38:01]
your comparable sales and be
able to divide by four.

[00:38:04]
So that’s the second pitfall.

[00:38:07]
The third one is getting scared.

[00:38:09]
You buy a piece of property,
and now you stop your mailings.

[00:38:13]
You stop your deal flow.

[00:38:15]
You’re like Chickfila without chicken.

[00:38:17]
So if you want to be in the land business,

[00:38:20]
then you need to constantly
be buying land.

[00:38:22]
So oftentimes newbies will buy.

[00:38:24]
Stop their mailing, stop their
deal flow and try to sell first.

[00:38:28]
It’s a huge mistake,

[00:38:29]
because once they sell the property,
which is I’ve done 6000 times.

[00:38:32]
I’ve never been stuck with this property.

[00:38:33]
They all sell.

[00:38:35]
Then it takes you another six.

[00:38:37]
We lost six weeks of time of deal flow.

[00:38:39]
Oh, you got to keep that funnel full.

[00:38:41]
You got to keep that thing going.
All right.

[00:38:44]
Another pitfall is in due diligence.

[00:38:47]
First of all, we never tell you to go
buy in Pennsylvania, Ohio or New Jersey.

[00:38:51]
But these are areas that could be

[00:38:53]
industrial areas where
there are super fund sites.

[00:38:55]
So you have to go to site like EPA.

[00:38:56]
Gov to make sure you’re not
buying a super fun site.

[00:39:00]
What is a super fun site?

[00:39:02]
Super fun site is
an environmental cleanup hazard.

[00:39:05]
It can cost millions of dollars.
All right.

[00:39:09]
To fix hot potato you don’t want.

[00:39:12]
Okay, hot potato you don’t want?
Absolutely.

[00:39:14]
So you make sure there’s no
environmental issues got you.

[00:39:19]
It’s really rare in the southwest,
northwest, California, Florida, sure.

[00:39:25]
But still, it’s something
you want to be aware of.

[00:39:26]
But I would say the biggest mistake I
see people make is stopping deal flow.

[00:39:31]
All right.

[00:39:32]
You got to just keep that pumping.

[00:39:37]
Has there been because
this is a volume business.

[00:39:41]
So $300 a month of passive income really
doesn’t move the needle for most people.

[00:39:46]
Right.

[00:39:46]
So you got to be doing deal
after deal after deal.

[00:39:49]
Once you get to say 10,000 miles passive

[00:39:52]
for most people, that’s
going to get them free.

[00:39:55]
All right.

[00:39:57]
That’s cool.
Yeah.

[00:39:59]
10,000 a month.

[00:40:00]
That’s a common number for a lot
of entrepreneurs to aim for, right?

[00:40:04]
Yeah.
That’s cool.

[00:40:08]
As far as finding the land

[00:40:10]
opportunities and stuff like that,
the majority of the stuff that you’re

[00:40:13]
going after is people that owe
back taxes and stuff like that.

[00:40:16]
So it’s not going to be
something that you find on.

[00:40:20]
Oh, my gosh.
My mind is blank about the real estate.

[00:40:25]
The MLS or? MLS.
That’s what I was thinking of.

[00:40:28]
Yeah.
So it’s not necessarily on the MLS.

[00:40:30]
We don’t want deals where
there’s brokers involved.

[00:40:33]
All right.
Because they’re already selling at retail.

[00:40:35]
We want to find people.

[00:40:36]
Imagine if I sent you an offer,
$25 for everything in your garage.

[00:40:40]
Yeah.
Right.

[00:40:43]
That might take you up on a lot of it.
Right.

[00:40:45]
Exactly.

[00:40:46]
So it’s the same thing
with the land got you.

[00:40:48]
They’re not going to do anything with it.
Got you.

[00:40:50]
Okay.
So it’s just a random.

[00:40:52]
Hey, if you’re interested.

[00:40:53]
Here we go exactly at this price.

[00:40:56]
So we don’t want to be in the
negotiating business either.

[00:40:58]
Housing guys, I’m interested
in buying a house.

[00:41:01]
I’m interested in selling my house.
What’s your offer?

[00:41:03]
So now we’re in a negotiation again.

[00:41:05]
That takes time.
All right.

[00:41:06]
So I want to see an actual offer.

[00:41:08]
This is a take it or
leave it for the offer.

[00:41:12]
My gosh.
This is so clever.

[00:41:13]
Because I think now when I’m thinking

[00:41:16]
about real estate,
I’m like, it was a house.

[00:41:18]
You don’t know what’s
behind the sheet rock.

[00:41:21]
When you buy that house, what has been
done to it, what’s not been done?

[00:41:25]
Code, water leakage, electrical issues,
sewer, blah, blah, blah.

[00:41:30]
All the stuff with dirt, dirt.

[00:41:33]
As long as no one put their nuclear
waste on it, you’re probably okay.

[00:41:38]
Exactly.

[00:41:40]
That is so clever.
You know what?

[00:41:44]
Now that we’re talking, I can’t believe
other people haven’t done this.

[00:41:48]
Yeah.
It’s so funny because I’ll be on other

[00:41:51]
podcasts and people say,
Look, Mark, it’s so great.

[00:41:54]
Why are you teaching other
people how to do it?

[00:41:57]
And so it’s a fair question.
Right.

[00:42:01]
And so the reason is
that the market is massive.

[00:42:05]
There’s billions of acres of land
for sale, and there’s no one doing it.

[00:42:09]
There’s no big money.

[00:42:10]
There’s no private equity groups,
there’s no hedge funds.

[00:42:12]
Yeah.

[00:42:13]
Me a million people
could be in this niche.

[00:42:15]
We’ll all run out of money before
we run out of deal, right.

[00:42:18]
That’s why I put my investment banker hat
on it’s like, well, how big is the market?

[00:42:22]
And then for me, it’s just very gratifying
to change someone’s life, right?

[00:42:27]
Yeah.
It’s one of the best things.

[00:42:28]
When I’m doing business coaching,
you run into a past client and they got

[00:42:33]
their little stories or whatever
it is that they’re doing.

[00:42:35]
And they’ve grown because of the advice
that they took that you gave them.

[00:42:39]
That’s the best feeling in the world.

[00:42:40]
It’s the best feeling in the world.
Yeah.

[00:42:42]
So I can imagine when you’re helping
somebody learn how to invest in land.

[00:42:45]
They actually do it right.

[00:42:47]
You don’t just teach them
how to do their push ups.

[00:42:48]
Actually do the push ups or whatever.
Yeah.

[00:42:50]
Exactly.
It’s amazing.

[00:42:52]
It’s amazing.
Yeah.

[00:42:54]
So I get that.
I totally understand that you can always

[00:42:56]
send the elevator back down
and help people get up.

[00:42:59]
So that’s cool.

[00:43:00]
Mark, how can people find you?

[00:43:03]
thelandgeek.com.

[00:43:08]
It couldn’t be any easier than
that, is what it comes down to.

[00:43:12]
I appreciate you sharing all this with us.

[00:43:14]
You give us a lot of great advice here.

[00:43:16]
Thanks, James.

[00:43:18]
I can only hope that there is someone

[00:43:19]
that has listened or watched this
and they’re like, you know what?

[00:43:24]
I’m doing this in a few months,
a few years down the road.

[00:43:28]
They leave a little comment
and they’re like, funny story.

[00:43:31]
I quit my job
and I’m making bank now working.

[00:43:35]
What do you say?
2 hours a month.

[00:43:37]
2 hours a month?

[00:43:38]
That is nothing short of amazing.
Thank you.

[00:43:42]
That is fantastic.

[00:43:43]
Mark, thanks so much
for being on the show.

[00:43:45]
Thanks, James.
I appreciate it.

[00:43:47]
This has been Authentic Business Adventures,
the business program that brings

[00:43:56]
the struggles, stories , and triumphant successes of business owners across the land.

[00:43:55]
We are underwritten locally by the Bank of Sun Prairie

[00:43:58]
If you are listening or watching this on the web,
you could do us a huge favor.

[00:44:00]
Give us a thumbs up.

[00:44:01]
Subscribe, comment, share. Especially share
with all those people that,

[00:44:05]
you know that think…2 hours a month
doesn’t seem like that bad of a deal.

[00:44:09]
My name is James Kademan,
and Authentic Business Adventures is

[00:44:12]
brought to you by Calls on Call,
offering call answering and reception

[00:44:16]
services for service
businesses across the country.

[00:44:19]
On the web, callsoncall.com

[00:44:21]
As well as Draw In Customers Business Coaching, offering business coaching services for entrepreneurs

[00:44:26]
looking for growth. On the web
at drawincustomers.com.

[00:44:29]

And, of course, The Bold Business Book,

[00:44:32]
a book for the entrepreneur in all of us
available wherever fine books are sold.

[00:44:35]
We’d like to thank you,

[00:44:36]
our wonderful listeners,
as well as our guest, Mark Podolsky,

[00:44:39]
I hope I didn’t butcher your name.
I apologize.

[00:44:41]
You didn’t.
Yay.

[00:44:43]
The Land Geek found at what’s
that website again? thelandgeek.com

[00:44:47]
Easy enough.

[00:44:48]
Past episodes can be found
morning, noon, and night.

[00:44:50]
The podcast link found at
drawincustomers.com.

[00:44:54]
Thank you for listening.

[00:44:55]
We’ll see you next week.
I want you to stay awesome.

[00:44:57]
And if you do nothing else,
you know what to do.

[00:44:59]
Enjoy your business.