A Freeway Runs Through It—Buying In The Path Of Growth

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and for this week's roundtable, we've got the usual suspects. It's his birthday. Should we even sing Happy Birthday? Should we do, like, a quick birthday? Should we do the dun dun, Dun Dun, like, 50 Cent Birthday, Maryland. Aaron. Happy birthday, Mark.

Thanks for the birthday wishes.

It's true. Yeah, it's a truly gift that you're even on the roundtable. I'm gonna start streaming on Facebook here, so I'm not ignoring as I do that. Hopefully it's working.

I just thought that you were getting all flustered because Scott Bossman's back. And, like, we know what happened last two weeks in a row, everything stops, including the podcast. And yet, you know.

I see Scott, I get all flush.

Yeah, yeah. Mark's growing.

Are you blushing, Scott?

Scott Bossman's on.

I think he's blushing.

He's speechless. He can't even say anything.

Speechless. I'm flattered.

Well, I mean, see?

Move to beer.

That's right.

I think Zano's so, so, like, upset. He's not even showing up anymore because the love affair between Mark and Bossman.

Like, Zano's out, like, it may be a little jealous.

That's right. We'll. We'll deal with Mike's jealousy in Orlando. Okay. You know, we'll hug it out. Speaking of hugging it out, Eric Peterson, the technician. How are you, Eric? I'm good.

Good to be here.

Looking forward to boot camp.

Same here. Same here. And then you know who else is gonna be at boot camp? The terrorist hunter, the most frightening woman in the world, Mimi Schmidt. How are you?

Great. How are you? Happy birthday, Aaron.

Thank you.

And then we've got the go giver, Jeannie Morum. Hi, Jeannie.

Hi. Hey, I'm trying to figure out the connection between you and Eric and the hugs. You just said hugs, so I'm trying.

To figure that out. There is no connection because I've been hazing Eric for so long that if I. If I don't hug it out with him, he's gonna start taking it personally. Yeah.

Or his mom will.

Yeah. Don't insult his mom.

Yeah, yeah. And Mrs. Peterson, if you are listening to this podcast, we love Eric. And last but not least, we got to give Scott Todd, the professor, the brain, your flight school Sherpa, some love. And the way to give them some love is go to landmodo.com or scott todd.net or most importantly, you're not automating your Craigslist and your Facebook postings. Posting domination.com forward/thelandgeek. Scott Todd, how are you?

Mark?

I'm great. How are you? I'm great, I'm great. Let's just get into it because Jeanne has a really interesting deal and I'd love to hear what the roundtable would do if they were Jeannie. So Jeanne, let's walk through this deal.

Okay. I have an opportunity to buy five acres in a county I haven't worked yet before and I found out that there's going to be a freeway running close by the property and I confirm that with the county and it won't be passing, it won't be going through the property itself, but it will be going close by. And I'm not sure how to handle that. Do I purchase it, hold it, purchase it and sell it? So I'm just throwing this out to the roundtable.

Yeah, I think it's a, it's an interesting deal in the path of growth in LA County. So bear line, Aaron, what would you do?

I don't know. That's pretty good question really. I guess one of my questions would be is this a limited access freeway? You know, how close is it looking like you'll be to possibly an on off ramp if it is that sort of thing?

I don't know.

Really good question. I'd like to hear what everybody else has to say. I guess if it, if it looks like it could increase the traffic in the area quite a bit, it's probably a good thing, but I don't really have any experience with it.

Okay. Eric Peterson, how about you?

Well, I guess, you know, there might be some additional research that needs to be done on the property and the growth in the area and kind of the general trends that are happening there to determine if it's worthwhile to hold. I mean, it sounds interesting being that they're extending a freeway or putting a freeway in, that could be really beneficial. I mean if, if your property happens to be adjacent to that freeway, I mean, you could lease for billboards. You know, obviously you could, you could hold that property long term. So I mean, you have lots of options. I guess it just depends what you can learn about the development that's happening.

I like it. I like it. Mimi Schmidt, how about you?

This just brings up a lot of questions for me. How close is it? Is it actually on the highway? What are the comps in the area? Are you getting super great deal on it? And is it really in that path of growth.

The freeway won't be on the property itself. It looks like about a mile, maybe a half a mile from the freeway.

Okay, is it zoned already commercial or residential?

Residential, but I will tell you there, the reason I found out is we have a land geek member in our community that brought it to my attention that he actually has family members that have property there and the freeway is going through their property and they got a letter and they, and they're not getting all that much money for the property. They're getting less than what they paid for. So a lot of unanswered questions from the county yet. So I'm still doing research.

Right. Sounds like you got to get some more questions answered before I could make a judgment on that one.

All right, dude. Buddy. Scott Bossman, how about you?

Yeah, I mean, it sounds promising. We always talk about, you know, it's always good to acquire land if you can acquire it at the right price and in areas of growth. So sounds promising that this could be a good long term investment, you know, depending on how far away it is. It is from the, from the freeway, you know, if it's, if it's very close, like Eric said, I think billboards, if it's a half mile, mile away, you know, that could be a great marketing tool for you in the future in selling that property. So, yeah, sounds to me like it's promising for sure. Just means a little bit more information and I think you could use it to your benefit on the selling side.

Yeah, yeah. Scott. Todd, how about you?

Well, I mean, like other people pointed out, it really all depends, right? Like it depends what you, what you want to do. For example, just because the interstate is going to run within a half mile or a mile of the location doesn't necessarily mean that that's going to change the market value from what it is.

Right?

Like what will change the market value substantially as people moving in is growth. Population growth. Population growth always changes the value of land or population reduction always lowers the price of land. So price of land is always driven by population changes, shifts. So, you know, just because the interstate is going to be a half mile to a mile away, how far is the nearest intersect on ramp or off ramp? I mean, like I own some property where two major interstates merge. I mean, it's probably about the same situation, let's say a mile from that. Yet it's probably a 20 minute drive just to get on the interstate of rural country road, because they pass, but there's no on or off ramps. So the mere fact that they're going to put an interstate in there, it doesn't necessarily change whether I would buy the property or not. What would change is do I think that this property has long term growth potential in terms of the price that I then put into my pocket and hold it? Otherwise I treat like any other property. I'm just going to market it and sell it on terms and if I get a cash buyer, great. If I don't, great. If I do it on terms, no problem. But you know, I think that that's really kind of some of the questions you have to ask is what do I want to do long term here with this one I'm buying? Do I want to hold it because I think that it will be worth more later or do I just want to flip it and generate some cash today?

Yeah. And Jeanne, I'd love to know who your neighbors are as well. I'd love to know if you know, building permits, what kind of volume is going on with planning and zoning. And that'll give you some clues as well. So, you know, once you get a full picture, Mimi was just telling a story about one of her family members that was in the path of growth. They sold their land for a seven figure payday. And so this is what a lot of people do, a lot of land bankers is they buy in the path of growth, they hold and it looks like a hockey stick. It just stays flat, flat, flat. Development comes in and then it rises up. And we've all heard the story about the person that bought in the path of growth and becomes a millionaire. So it's a good problem to have, Jeanne. It's a good problem to have. So it's interesting, you know, as you get those answers, you know, certainly come to me and partner.

Right. Okay.

So no worries, no worries. Moving on to our next topic. It's a kind of geeky topic, but it's one that I think could be valuable if everyone, I don't know if everyone's familiar with airtable. So this is one of my. And Eric Peterson, I think would agree, top tips of like the year is airtable.com which I actually came up with. If I can just toot, toot my own horn here for a second. After you. You know, the merciless hazing that Eric would give me when I would do the tip of the week that's not here or there. But Airtable, if you don't know what it is, is a combination of a database and a spreadsheet. Kind of like smartsheet.com, i think it's a little bit easier to do. They have a lot of templates and there's a lot of power with that combination of a database and a spreadsheet that you can utilize lots of different ways. So one of our members wanted to know, how are we personally using the power of airtable? And there's all these types of integrations you can do with Zapier as well. So, Barelyn Aaron, are you doing anything with your land business on airtable?

I do a few things.

One thing that comes to mind is actually because I use my daughter to do my mailing. She does my envelopes and that sort of thing. And I was originally using like a Google sheet for her to enter her, you know, the amount of envelopes she's done and that sort of thing. And it was, it was kind of clunky. So I set up a similar spreadsheet, kind of a timesheet on airtable, and I integrated a zap with it. And what it does now is she uses a link and through one of the Airtable forms, she enters simply how many envelopes she did, and then it, you know, calculates her pay and texts her back with a, with a kind of a pay receipt that she's expecting this much money. So it's kind of a cool little thing. That's, that's one way we use it.

That's really cool. I love it. I love it. Jeannie, are you using airtable?

Nope, not at all. I'm an Excel person, so I'm going to look into it today.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think you might like it. You might like it. How are you? Eric Peterson?

So I use it for a bunch of stuff. One of the main things we use it for is managing our Craigslist ads. So talked about it before, but there's a, there's a posting domination base available in the airtable universe, and you can go download that template. But essentially what it's set up for is the Craigslist posting method with proxies. So we manage all the accounts, the proxies, the available properties, the ad schedule, and all that information right there in that particular air table. So that works really well for my, my Craigslist team. I use it for a bunch of other stuff too, mostly sharing of information with, you know, bookkeepers or, you know, other VAs that need access to, you know, kind of rows of information.

So very cool. And do you automate that communication with Zapier?

Certain aspects of it are automated. Yes.

Very cool, Very cool. Mimi, how about You?

Yes, I use it similarly to how Eric uses it. I've got an inventory so that the copywriter, ad posters, my manager, they all know which properties I have available. And it's got the photo links in it and the pricing. Post ads on.

Yeah, you're kind of freezing up on us.

Okay. And then my copywriter, he puts all the new ads every week in another tab. And then I have a tab with the proxies, and then I have a tab with all of the current ads. I have a zap that puts them in there. And then I can download that table or that spreadsheet of all of the ads to get my flag rate and I can watch which markets I'm getting the most leads out of. And then I have another tab where I put which. Which markets are performing best. So as kind of feedback copywriters.

Very cool. Very, very geeky too. Scott Bossman, how about you? Oh, you're on mute. Here you go.

Sorry, I'm not using it yet. I'm using a combination of other things, but it's definitely on my list to check out. There's been, you know, so much talk of it lately and how helpful it is. I have, I have looked around on there and I'm kind of brainstorming at this point how to, how to make the transition over. Currently I'm using Google Drive for my VAs. I'm using Pipedrive and using Slack as well. So I think I need to kind of consolidate and this may be the tool to do that.

Yeah, that's really interesting. You know, another tool you might want to look at is Notion AI that kind of can bring in all these various tools that you're using into one platform as well. Scott Todd, how about you?

Well, a lot like Eric, I use this, I use this for a Posting Domination component. So we'll use it to collect ads from various Craigslist cities and post them in there into Craigslist or into Airtable so we can see what properties people are advertising and talk about that. In Posting Domination, we use it for same thing that Eric. Eric created the template for the Posting Domination ad kind of writers. So we use that. I use it for other components. So I use it for kind of some land moto stuff to move stuff between people. But it does bring up a good point Mark. Like it brings up this question, brings up, I think, a great point which is not necessarily like how are. Are you using it? Which is, I mean, it's kind of cool to hear how other people are using things, but really, you Know what you should. What you should be trying to first figure out is what problem you're trying to solve. Right. And then using or leveraging that airtable as a potential tool for. So once you identify the tool or the. I'm sorry, the problem, then you say, okay, well, bam, I got this problem. Can airtable filled in. So it's almost like what Scott Bossman was saying. Like, I got. I got all these different tools. Okay, well, if they're working, great, but if not, if you have a problem that's not being met, if you have an itch that's not being scratched, could airtable be the solution for. As opposed to going to air table and saying, what can I use this thing for?

Right, right. And, you know, I think that actually brings us to a great segue because if you want to learn how to start identifying problems and actually accelerating your success, Land investing. There's no better Sherpa to take you up that land investing mountain than Scott Todd. And it's a little program called flight school. So if you want to learn more about enrolling in flight school, you got to get on the phone with dude buddy Scott Bossman or the zen master Mike Zano. Just go to the landgeek.com training schedule a call and learn more. There's. So I think that's really interesting. So. Oh, bear land. Aaron wants to know what was the name of the posting base? Eric, what was the name of it?

It's Posting Domination Base. If you go to the Air Table Universe, which is Airtable.com universe, there's categories on the left side. You go into real estate and just scroll through and you'll see Posting Domination. I'll put the link in here for Aaron, but that's not going to help everyone else, so.

All right, great, great. You know, we could put the link in on the show notes. So.

Okay.

Or they can just find it like I described there. They'll get to it.

Yeah, yeah. So I want to thank everybody who's been watching a stream on Facebook, but now we've got to stop the stream so that you actually go to your, you know, podcast catcher or whatever it is. I use downcast or podcasts on the app Store, whatever it is. You know, we're everywhere and actually download and listen to the podcast. So you can actually listen to Eric Peterson's tip of the week. All right, so, Eric, we're at that point now. We're get to put you on the spot and ask you for your tip of the week. A website, a resource, a book. A quote, something actionable for the art of passive income listeners to go improve their businesses, improve their lives. What do you got?

All right, Mark, I think you're gonna like this one, but I'll warn you, I don't know the pricing. It's called podium or podium P O D I U M. And essentially it's a tool for gathering reviews. And the way I happen to find this is someone used it for me based, you know, I bought something and I later got a text message with this link asking for review. And basically click the link from your text text message, it launches, open a browser and, you know, asks you to leave a quick review.

And it.

I believe you have the opportunity to select kind of the default place you'd like the review to be made at. But the user can also choose a different location. So Google Reviews and Facebook, and I don't even remember there was. There was quite a few. I think Yelp was in there and so on. But kind of a interesting little tool to try and get those reviews. I know a lot of people are trying to get reviews and anything to make that easier for the other side of the transaction is always a good thing.

This is interesting. I think, based on the pricing, it could be a great way to go. It says we have products and prices for every business size, and then you just schedule a demo with them so there isn't any pricing on the site. Which usually when I see that, I get kind of nervous. But maybe I'm, you know, I'm jumping the gun. But, You know, for our business, like, I guess if you're doing tons of volume, podium could help. But for our business, like, couldn't you just pick up the phone and say, he had really, like.

Yeah. I mean, and I send out links for reviews all the time, and sometimes I get them, sometimes I don't. But I will say, like, I went through this process. I actually got the message from, you know, someone that I purchased something from, and it was super easy. And it kind of just caught my attention. It was outside of email. Um, you know, is this nice little short link. And it just made it really easy, and I just went ahead and did it. So. I don't know.

Jeanne, what do you think?

I don't know. I'm with you, Mark.

I'm.

I'm simple. The simpler the better. And I don't know. I'm gonna look, though, Eric. I'm look at it.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think we should, you know, sort of maybe hold back our scorn for maybe next week. So we know the pricing bear land. Aaron, what about you? What do you think?

Well, you know, I. Sometimes people will email a review back to me or something. I've had people, you know, want to do some sort of review, but not really understand technology. Even though they have, you know, maybe a smartphone. This might be, you know, easier, especially, especially if you're looking maybe for a review on the buy side for, you know, acquisitions. Because a lot of times those people aren't that savvy to make a video or an audio recording and know how to upload it to you, that sort of thing. But, you know, if they get a link to their, their phone and you let them know ahead of time, hey, I'm going to send you this link. Just click on it and you know, you can do it right there. You know, it might increase a little bit, but it does depend on pricing.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Mimi, would you. Could you see yourself using this in your business?

Yeah, definitely.

Have you ever had a struggle getting a testimonial?

Just, it seems like it makes it a little easier.

All right, look, you know, we all live by that philosophy. Can always make more money, can't get more time. So there you go. How about you, dude?

Buddy to me, I'd love to try it. You know, I think I badger people sometimes for testimonials and it's inconvenient for them to leave whatever they're doing, go sit down at the computer and type something out for me, whether it's on Facebook or an email or whatever. So sounds like if we can make this process easier for our customers, I would definitely look into something like that.

I like it. Scott, Todd, how about you?

Look, I don't make it. I don't make a big effort to go get testimonials.

Right.

Like, so for me, I'm like, eh, it's not that, that, that big of a deal. But that's not a problem I'm trying to solve.

So.

But if it was this, I'd look into it.

I'm shocked actually by that response. I would think that anything Eric recommends, you'd be like, this is amazing. See?

You see, like that's the thing is like, I like Eric. I like everybody. But you know what? There's no like, there's no like, oh my gosh, Scott, bossman's here. I'm so like overwhelmed and happy kind of moment. Eric's here. Like last week. Mark, you know what I'm talking about. Please replay last week's and you'll see exactly. Literally the show stopped When Bossman shows up yet Mimi comes in, it's just like, hey, Mimi's here.

You know what? When Mimi first started on the podcast, I did have shiny object syndrome, okay? Same thing with Jeannie, all right? If anyone should be complaining, it's probably bear land. Aaron. He probably has legitimate gripe.

I'm cool. It'll fade quickly. It'll fade.

Birthday.

Yeah.

So for those of you listening this.

He'S not even here.

The Brady Bunch is breaking up.

Tate's got thick skin. He's cool. Unlike not coming back.

We got it. Until he gets some love.

He's so pretentious, he couldn't even get a start, let alone a hard stop.

Oh, man, the duties here.

I hope he listens to this one.

He's en route to Orlando right now. He's gonna go fishing. This guy's living, by the way. He really is. Oh, my gosh. We all kind of are. But, you know, tomorrow I'll be in an airplane and Tate will be fishing. I'm not. I'm not jealous. Do I sound jealous? No, more slightly. You know. So speaking of birthdays and jealousy, Scott Todd just celebrated a birthday, and I voxed him. I'm like, so, you flying your wife to lunch today?

I did not know. Even though. Even though we went, we had an easy Sunday, but then the day before, we had gone to the food and wine festival, so it was nice.

Wow.

I feel I should wish Scott Todd a happy birthday because I apparently missed it. Man, I'm sorry.

Don't worry about it.

Yeah, yeah, no worries. No worries. I do remember Scott boxing me. Like, I've heard from everyone in the community except for Barely and Aaron. Did I film or anything? You know what? But I don't. I don't like to get in. I don't like to do the whole triangle thing. Like, I was just, like. Just talk directly to the bear land. I didn't say anything.

Yeah, Mark's stirring the pot right now.

Don't worry.

You started it. Me? I'm finishing it.

No, you started by your claim that. Oh, I'm surprised that Scott didn't have, like, this love a fast over Eric and I just threw it back. That's all I did.

No, no, this is.

No, no.

This is residual resentment from the very beginning of the podcast. We're like, oh, Scott Bossman's on. It started there. It started there. Okay, this is healthy.

Get it all out.

I think it started last week.

Wait a minute. At that point, it doesn't count.

All right?

It's not Coming next week.

I'm hearing lots of jealousy. I think this is hilarious.

Causing all of these conflicted feelings.

We'll work it out. We'll work it out. Zaina's the one I'm worried about in Orlando. Honestly, that bromance is just intense to the point where the wives are, you know, kind of like, it's. Do you guys think it's weird that our husbands won't sit with us at dinner?

Do you think it's fair?

Hey, I don't know about the rest of you, but aren't you just wondering what Scott Todd is doing? And he's doing some workouts there. Did you see him going in and out of the screen and stretching today?

I've been bus.

Watching him all hour.

I got p. I got people that are like, keep coming to my house. I'm trying to figure out what the heck's going on around here. There's no. There's nothing, like, nothing going on here. Then I dropped. I dropped something. Yeah, I'm interrupting the show. Sorry.

Nervous. Nervous.

Mark got him so flustered. He's throwing stuff.

That's.

That's my talent. That's my talent. My. My three kids will tell me, you know, all the time, dad, you're so annoying. I'm like, look, if I'm going to do something, I wouldn't be the best at it. Be the most annoying.

Exactly.

But hopefully those of you listening to the podcast are not annoyed. And I want to thank all of you for taking time out. Hopefully, you're getting some value on the podcasts. And if you are, please do us a favor. Please subscribe, rate, and review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of that review to supportlandlangeek.com we're going to send you for free the $97 passive income launch kit. And again, don't be shy. Get on a call with Scott and Mike, go to thelandgeek.com training and learn more about. About the power of taking flight with your flight instructor, Scott Todd. So are we good, everyone? All right, Are we going to do this? All right, now we're going to do it fast, right? We're going to do like a 1, 2, 3 count, right?

Okay.

I'm still going to be quiet.

It's okay. It's okay. It's your birthday.

Shout from the rooftops.

Shout. Yeah, exactly. One, two, three.

Let's say we were gonna do it fast. I know.

So, too.

Was that not fast?

No.

It felt fast to me. No. All right, well, there's always next week. All right. Thanks, everybody. And we'll be talking about Orlando Boot camp on the next podcast. Can't wait to see everybody.

Great trip, everybody.

Yep. Travel safe. See you there.

All right, thanks, everyone.