Current Land Observations and Opportunities for Today's Inflationary Economy

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, thelandgeek.com and on this week's Roundtable podcast, we have almost all the usual suspects. We have the Zen master, Breathe in, the mailing, Breathe out, the marketing, Michael Zaino. Mike, how are you?

I'm doing great. I'm doing wonderful. Especially since my tea delivery is coming right now as we speak.

Fantastic. Fantastic. It's a nice, mellow caffeine buzz.

Yes, yes.

As opposed to Dude Buddy, the nightcap og, when he gets that cup of joe in him, look out, brother. Scott Bossman. How are you, Mark?

I'm doing well. Glad to be here.

Good to see you. We have the technician, Eric Peterson, and Eric is a coffee drinker, but despite the amount of caffeine. Steady, Eddie, steady. Not too high, not too low. Eric, is that. Is that a good way to describe.

Yeah, very even keel.

Very even keel. Unlike Tate, where if he doesn't get that Diet Coke in the morning, irritable. I love it when you call me Big Papa. Tate Litchfield. How are you?

Good and really good.

You know, I'm just hazing you, man. You're probably not. You're not irritable, are you?

No, I definitely am. For sure.

Without coffee?

Without a Diet Coke?

Yeah, without a Diet Coke.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, I guess it's just.

Kind of one of those things. It's like a. It's just a comfort thing, I guess, more than a Diet Coke. When I don't ride my bike, I get irritable. At least that's what my wife tells me.

That could be a good podcast, actually. Like, what makes us irritable? Yeah, for sure.

What prevents us from being irritable?

Yeah, what prevents us from being irritable? And how does that.

Are we segueing? Are we changing the topic in real time?

No, we can't change the topic. We have a great topic because it's timely, and I think a lot of the listeners are going to want to know, given the. I mean, look, if you're in the stock market, right, you're feeling it. And if you're in real estate and interest rates are rising, you're feeling it. If you don't have an electric vehicle, you're feeling it with inflation. So how are we feeling about our own land businesses? How are things going currently? What are we seeing in the marketplace? So, as tradition, he loves going first, the Zen master Mike Zaino. How are things going with you?

First of all, we have one clarification. I thought Eric was part of the no coffee club.

So that's kind of true. I no longer make coffee every morning as part of my regular routine.

Okay.

However, if I'm out and I pass by a coffee shop and it sounds good, I'll get it. So, you know, I'll have it occasionally, but it's certainly not a. Not a regular routine.

You broke the addiction to coffee is what you're saying. You enjoy it on your own terms. I guess that's pretty good. Okay, that was a little stall time, but because I go first on this topic. So I don't know. Land is going great right now. Mark six sales this last week and five were terms. One was cash. Will, cash in two payments. So we're still buying a lot of land. I can say that we, you know, observation. We didn't, you know, we went into a few new areas and we failed to do the full county research. So now they're all mail in these three new areas we're in. So I'm feeling the pain of that. You know, it's not like it. It's not unsurmountable. Right. But it's not ideal. You know, you're so used to being able to record them and, you know, you send them into a new county, they have a little something they don't like. I always feel like it's a school teacher scolding you. It comes back and, oh, you didn't do this. Right. You gotta mail it back again. So, you know, so that there's that, you know, I don't know. So do you have any more specific. You're just saying, like, let me try to feel this topic live. Like, is my feeling like less sales? More sales, less acquisitions, more like that type of thing?

Sure.

Yes.

All of the above.

What's your land observations? What's your land observations?

This is still an incredible opportunity for anyone. Like, I think that if you're looking at this right now, honestly, it's how I feel. Okay. I think I feel like I feel this. I got it right now. You feel like, all right, they're about maybe the economy could tank or something like that. And you're like, oh, a bad time. That's just another excuse. Like, there's so many excuses people have the, well, they might not start something new. It's like, oh, I'm busy this month, but you're not going to be busy next month. We're all busy every month. Right. Or the economy, it's going to go. Potentially going to go crazy. No one really knows. But here's the reality. We're still buying land 25, 30 cents on the dollar and it's still a great opportunity to do that. And I don't think it's ever going to be a bad opportunity to do that. So I feel really positive right now. And the people that I talk to that are coming to the business, they are supercharged because this opportunity is still here for the taking. Mark, you teach us to insulate 25 cents on the dollar. If the market tanks what we might just double our money. I mean it's a horrible day in the neighborhood, right? We double our money. So I'm feeling pretty positive. If you're asking me for my overall feeling, I'm supercharged, ready to go.

Yeah. I mean to your point, when you have a 300% margin of safety, it's literally impossible given any market conditions to lose money. So it's a really good point. But I'd love to hear the counterpoint. I feel like the McLaughlin Group dude buddy, the Nightcap OG Scott Bossman, what are your thoughts?

Well, if it's a counterpoint, what I'll say is this. Coming up on my seven year anniversary since I found the land geek by accident and of many things in the last seven years, what I can say about land is that it's been very stable. I can count on it. Our business continues to grow every single year we're buying. We've bought more land this year than we ever have. Sales are going really well. It's been a great, great addition to my life. And then you look at other things, right? You look at, well, what's happening with inflation now. You look at fuel prices all over the board the last seven years. I mean you look at the real estate market and the last couple of years there have been very few homes on the market. How many realtors are out there fighting over these homes? We just don't have that in the land business. So what I appreciate is the fact that it really feels like something I can count on right now. I can't count on a lot of other stuff. I can't count on my cryptocurrency investment, right, that I've invested in to a small degree in the last few years. But I can count on land because we're buying, we're continuing to buy land for 20, 30, 35 cents on the dollar and we're selling them quick. And people are loving land right now.

I love it. I love it. Eric the technician Peterson. How are, how's your business going? Are you seeing any changes?

Well, I Think before I get to that, I. I guess what I would say is I totally agree with, with Scott. I think that there's a certain stability that comes from an established land business and security at the same time. You know, the whole goal of the business is to create this passive income that can support you for a period of time. You know, if your average note length is five years, six years, whatever that is, I mean, theoretically, that income is there for the next five or six years. It could go down some if the economy gets bad. But you still own those assets. You can still sell them to somebody else, maybe at a different price. But. And because of that, I really look at it as very stable and secure. In terms of what I'm seeing right now in my business. I think that we're probably holding more inventory right now than we ever have. We're trying to buy as much land as we can, but paying attention to the prices that we're paying. We're not going to go out and pay too much for land. Um, we're always paying attention to that. And that's super important because if we just get greedy and we want to go acquire as much land as possible with, you know, no attention to price, we can pay too much and get ourselves in a bad spot. And I think that that's an area where, when we're talking about our typical deals, that we might go pay a couple thousand dollars and sell for, you know, eight to $10,000 maybe, depending on the property. You know, it's pretty hard to get yourself in trouble in those if you're paying the right amount for them. But when we start going into bigger properties, more expensive properties, that we might be paying 30,000, 60,000, 100,000, et cetera. Well, when we're doing that, typically we're having to pay more for those assets. We're not getting the same type of deal, if you will, on those properties. We might be paying 50% of their supposed market value. And that's where I get concerned right when we go and we're getting closer and closer to those market values. If things turn, it can put us in a lot of trouble. Back to my business and what else we're seeing. I think one of the biggest struggles I'm having right now is finding good people, and it's starting to drive me crazy. I have been in the search for a second salesperson for months now, and multiple times I've hired somebody and they've quit after a couple of days or in, sometimes even before they started. And, you know, when I Go out and look for those people and interview those people. You know, I just feel like I.

Don'T have.

The selection I'd like to have, I guess, you know, I feel like there's less people interested in work right now, and I don't really know why that is. I feel like people should be really in need of work right now and what I have the potential to offer with passive income and whatnot, but that's been a struggle and it's frustrating. But I'm not going to give up, just going to keep pushing through it. I'll find the right person eventually. So I don't know.

That's what I got. Yeah, I can totally relate, just in the sense that, I mean, you guys probably have noticed this as well. Every service business has taken a big hit. And to Eric's point, like, I don't know why that is. I know in bigger companies, it's like the great resignation. If you're talented, you can just go to another company now because everyone's fighting so hard in such a tight labor market for talent. I don't know where everyone went. My guess is they went into the land business or some other know, side gig and they liked it so much they're like, oh, yeah, I'm not going to go back working for the man. But to Eric's point, like, we need sales assistance, people. Come on. It's a great opportunity. And if you know of someone, refer them to Eric. That is the power of this podcast. So, Eric, what's the best place that to send you a referral?

They can email me directly, I suppose.

Yeah.

I mean, because there's a lot of people that want to get into this business and they don't maybe don't have the capital or they don't think they can get into the training right now. Become a sales assistant. You'll learn the layout business. You'll start building your passive income and grow from there.

So he's going to get a sales assistant from this podcast?

No, I want to apprentice with Eric Peterson.

Yeah, absolutely. And Eric will pay you a signing bonus of $100. If you just mentioned that you came from the podcast, Eric, I'll pay you back for that anyways. Hey.

All right. Land observations. I mean, we're selling a lot of land still. We're buying a lot of land still. And we are, I guess this week we did have a default. I don't know if it's a result of, you know, an external factor or anything like that, but we did have a default recently and it's just kind of the name of the game. It's okay. The person defaulted after four years and we're going to resell that prop property in no time here. So I'm not stressed over that. Like Eric, I think finding good VAs is getting increasingly difficult right now. So if you do have VIPs or rock stars on your team, treat them well, show them love, you know, tell them thank you. Now is not the time to nickel and dime your team members because at the end of the day, you don't want to find yourself in a situation where all the work comes back to you. I'm buying as much land as I possibly can. I've never spent this much money or held this much property in inventory as I am right now. And I'm cool with it. I am 100% comfortable paying 2022 pricing because if you zoom out on the real estate market and the price of hard assets, they really go one direction in one direction only. And so I am very comfortable tying up my money, especially at the few thousand dollars price range where we typically play. I'd be very nervous if I was buying $50,000 properties, $25,000 properties. I'd be stressed. It's interesting at the beginning, Scott Bossman said that he's seen fewer cash deals over the last six months, eight months. And I've seen more cash deals over the last six months. So who knows? Maybe that's a pricing thing. Maybe it's an area thing. Maybe it's. It's a marketing thing. The old saying is when you want cash, pray for terms kind of thing, because that's how it typically works out. You get exactly the opposite of what you really think you need. So I don't know. I mean, I'm really optimistic. I think that 2022 and 2023 are going to be ridiculous. I think they're going to be awesome. I am not stressed at all.

Yeah.

Bring it on. Let's go, baby.

Yeah. I 100% agree. I think that the future is very bright only because if you look economically at history, when we hit inflation or even stagflation, what are the biggest and most popular investments? Commodities. Gold.

Silver.

Land. And we don't want to get into wheat and all that stuff. But commodities are going to continue to prosper. So to Mike's point, there's never a good time to start anything. So now is always the best time to start anything. When's the best time to plant a tree? 15 years ago. Second best time today. Maybe it's 25 years ago.

How was it?

Depends on the tree, I guess. I don't know the cliche. I don't know. Anyways, and then Scott Boston's point. This is not a business that is going to ever be unstable. Not to pick on other asset classes or other types of businesses, but they are more cyclical, they are going to be more volatile depending on different economic conditions. Land is always going to be the basis of wealth and there's always going to be a fixed supply. It's always going to be relatively stable as an asset class. So I've been doing this over 20 years. Still profitable during the Great Recession, 2008, 2009, 2010. If you've read dirt rich market, made some dumb things, like I made some dumb mistakes. That being said, I've learned from them using a profit first model now. And, you know, inevitably this market will go down, prices will go down, and it's just going to be more on sale. So it's. I'm bullish for the land business. I don't think I'm bullish on the overall economy, but I'm definitely bullish on our business. And if I wasn't, I, I would say so, honestly, I would still say that it's always a good time to start a land business, but I would say that it's, you know, if you're starting in an economy that's a little bit more difficult, it's going to be more difficult to sell, but it's going to be really easy to buy. And then in time, you'll get equilibrium and then it'll graduate into a really easy to sell, tougher to buy type of market, which I would say that we've been experiencing. So now it'd be fun to start buying again and finally to see Tate actually try to be creative with his marketing. Been so spoiled these past few years.

We have been spoiled. I'll admit it.

We were successful before.

It was easy too. So, I mean, whatever, I'll take it. And here's the thing with marketing. What works today is not going to work tomorrow. My lack of effort today will not get me by in 2023. I might have to put a little more thought into it, get a little bit more creative. Okay, no problem. I've been coasting for three years. That's all right.

There you go. Well, I thought this was a great topic, but we're at that point in the podcast where we're going to put Bossman on the spot and ask him for his tip of the week, a website, a resource A book, something actionable for the art of passive income listeners to go improve their businesses, improve their lives. But before he gives his tip of the week, we have to give a shout out to our sponsor, which is flight school. Learn how the next 16 weeks can transform your life. Start building up your passive income without renters, rehabs, renovations, or rodents, and learn from the very best. Scott Todd will be your flight school Sherpa. He'll take you up that mount of land investing quickly, safely, efficiently. Oh, yeah, and that flight school investment ain't going to cost you nothing. Guaranteed you're going to make back that money 180 days or less. Just show us your work. Learn more. Go to thelandgeek.com training thelandgeek.com training Scott Bossman. What is your tip of the week?

That my punishment for not being here for forever?

No, we all went like this.

Oh, I didn't know it.

Nose goes.

Yeah, I was distracted. Actually, I am prepared with the tip of the week. This is a good one, Mark. You're gonna love this one. Have you guys ever purchased land on a credit card? Oh, there's a service out there called Plastique. You go enter your favorite business credit card, and for a 3% fee, you can send a check to your buyer or your seller. Sorry, Send a check to your seller, and then you accumulate a lot of points and you just pay off your credit card at the end of the month.

I love it. I love it. That's a great tip.

Something to try.

No, it's. It's a great tip. And can you pay vendors as well your VAs? Yeah. So that's a great tip. I. I started looking into it. I couldn't find exactly how to do it, but I want to do it. And I. I know one of our land geeks has been doing it for years and loves it.

So.

I don't know if we want to give him a shout out or not.

He's very successful with that one and he loves his points.

He loves his points. Well, I want to thank the listeners and remind them the only way, the only way we're going to get Bossman to continue dishing out amazing tips of the week is if it's just three little favors. Follow Rate Review the podcast, Send a screenshot of that review. Support thelantic.com we are going to send you for free a signed copy of Dirt Rich. All right, let's do this. One, two, three. Let's Freedom ring.

Not bad.

Yeah.

And Mike, you showed some enthusiasm after having some tea.

Yeah. That really kicked in. Didn't.

Did. Is it like an herbal tea? What kind of tea is it?

Yeah, it's tea. It's a new one with the. Have you seen the tea bags? They're triangular and they have the leaf that comes out the top. It's really cool. I'll send you the name of it. I forget it's off the top of my head, but it's amazing.

I have. I mean, I'm not a.

And this is essentia. So this is like a green tea. Okay. But that's just a brand. I'm saying that's a brand. They make different kinds. We were just on a recent trip to Florida and. And the hotel was serving them, and although they didn't have green tea, I was. But I did discover the brand, and then I got green tea online and voila. Sausage.

Awesome. I love it. Well, I think we gotta. We've got a topic for. For next time, which is what makes you irritable and. And how do you handle it?

Doesn't have green tea.

Yeah. When a restaurant doesn't have green tea. When a sales assistant cannot be hired in this economy. I could just. I could just see, like, Eric walking around his house, like, just cracking ribs over his knee. Son of a gun. Where is everybody? Where all the talent go?

He's going to have so many applicants after this episode. It's going to be crazy again. I need an update. We're going to need an update.

$100 signing bonus. Mentored by Eric Peterson. And Eric, don't worry, I got you. All right, thanks, everybody.

Thanks, Mark.

Thanks for listening to the Art of Passive Income podcast. Are you ready to learn how you can start building a passive income without renters, rehabs, renovations, or rodents? Schedule a free consultation@thelandgeek.com training. Let freedom ring.