For 2021 What Are Your Biggest Takeaways From Land Investing?

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, thelandgeek.com and on this week's roundtable, we've got almost all the usual suspects. We've got dude Buddy, the nightcap OG Scott Bossman. Scott, how are you?

Mark, great to be here. Just snuck in.

Good to see you. We've got the technician, Eric Peterson. Eric, how are things in beautiful Franklin?

Things are good. I was just thinking, you know, if you say that intro any faster, I don't think all of our listeners that listen to this on, like, two times even be able to understand you.

I have a feeling that most of our listeners are, like, fast forwarding, like, the first five minutes anyways, which is why we should. We have to, like, mix it up just to mess with them. We've got Terea putting in the reps. Harris, Treea, how are you?

I'm doing well.

It's good to see you. And of course, I love it when you call me Big Papa. Tate Litchfield. Tate Howard. Things in veggie, baby. Veggie. Veggie.

Ooh, I don't know about that, Mark. Vegas is good. Veggie. I don't know about that, though.

No good, no good, no bueno. You know, I took a risk with that.

Yeah, it was a bad. That backfired.

I apologize. Last but not least, the brain, the professor of flight school, Sherpa Scott Todd from scotttodd.net, landmodo.com learn anything, but anything. Investorninjas.com Scott Todd, how are you?

Good, Mark.

How are you?

I'm great. I think we have a really interesting topic to end the year with. What were our biggest takeaways of 2021? I mean, I think we can all agree 2020 was a total dumpster fire of a year, but 2021, not so bad. Not so bad in relation to 2020. So why don't we start with the person I know loves to start the most? Scott Postman.

Dude, Buddy, that cap OG Talk about the land business. Takeaways of land investing or biggest takeaways.

From land investing, of course.

Okay. All right.

Yeah.

Because that's why we're here. So I would say my biggest takeaway from the year is there was a lot of pivoting this year for us. There were a lot of. I would say a lot of dips where you had to maybe look at some things and figure out how to do things differently. So for us, we had to adjust our offer prices higher. We had to deal with some marketing platform woes that we hadn't had before. So in this year's business, there was maybe just a little bit more pivoting to try to figure out different strategies for different aspects of the business than maybe there have been in prior years. Same with, Same with buying land. You know, it was. It was a little bit harder to buy land this year than it was in 2020. So. So to pivot and find strategies for making your, you know, continuing to make your business grow in a year that's had some challenges, I think, is kind of my takeaway. Although it's still been a great year.

So being flexible was a big takeaway. I think that's great. The technician, Eric Peterson, what would you say was your biggest takeaway for land investing in 2021?

Yeah, I mean, we definitely saw the same things that Scott previously mentioned. But I would add that, you know, the. The market is strong. I've seen that in our business, as well as my coaching students businesses. There's. There's a lot of demand for land out there. Sales are good. Overall, it's. It's been a really good year for us. I think that even though it might be harder to buy land right now, I still would would say that there's plenty of land out there that is available that we can buy. The market is not oversaturated in any way. We're buying plenty of land and continue to do so. And I think beyond all of that, I would just add that, you know, as. As the year went on, I felt better and better about owning more land. I didn't want to have dollars in my bank accounts. Instead, more than ever, I wanted to own as much land as I could and translate those dollars into these assets of pieces of land that can generate passive income, but also are a little bit more durable than maybe our currency in today's world. So, yeah, yeah.

It reminds me of two of my favorite quotes from two of my favorite billionaires. The first one, Ray Dalio, is trash, and the second one is Warren Buffett, which is. It's not how fast you row the boat. It's like, what boat are you in? Right. So if your market is not good, it doesn't matter how hard you work, you want to be in the right market. And we are definitely in the right market. And I think 2020 really highlighted that for sure. But then as you go into an inflationary environment like the one we're in, it really highlights what a phenomenal market we have in the land business. So thank you for that. Taria Putting in the reps. Harris, what Were your biggest 2021 takeaways?

That investing one of ours that we discussed just a couple weeks ago was, I feel like in 2021, we really became CEOs of our business. So we really were able to get the right people in place after, you know, going through different VAs and, you know, finally narrowing down the ones that actually fit our business. So we were able to grow our team, put phenomenal people in place, thereby allowing Landon and I to kind of manage the business and steer the business in the direction we wanted it to go. I felt like 2020, we were still somewhat in it more than we want it to be. But 2021, we really understood what it felt like to be CEOs of our business.

How does it feel?

Amazing.

Free, Free, Free.

We feel freer. Much freer.

Big Papa Tate Litchfield, what were your biggest takeaways for 2021?

I am in the best passive income model. I mean, I've known this for a long time, but at the end of the day, I look back and I look back at the fun times that I've had and the money that I've made while on those fun trips or doing those activities and spending time with the family, and it's just kind of made me recognize how happy and how blessed and how my hard work is kind of paid off to live the life that I have. And so things that have kind of been an eye opener were the fact that, yeah, some prices have increased, but they've increased on both sides, the buy side, and more importantly on the sales side, I actually am happier spending a little bit more on properties in today's market than I was four years ago when I got them in a fraction of that price. Because we're selling them, we're getting better down payments, we're getting more monthly dollars coming in. So the biggest takeaway is it's a good time to be a land investor. I mean, I've said it many, many times, something I really believe, I know it to be true. And so anybody on the bubble listening about this should. Should join in. There's a lot of. There's a lot of space left at this table.

Yeah, absolutely. It's so funny because the other day I was talking to Scott Todd, and we'll be looking at the stock market once in a while. And then I have a friend who bought Tesla stock, and the financial insecurity of the stock market day to day is so miserable. And then you look at the land investing business. Does anyone know what Their what, the land market went up yesterday, went down yesterday or anything? No, we just look at our cash flow and it's just such a nice to avoid the emotional rollercoaster ride of financial insecurity or instability. So. I couldn't agree more. Scott Todd, biggest takeaway 2021.

I would say that you constantly have to look at the work that you're doing. I mean, we talk about this in flight school, about building the list of stuff that you love that you're okay with and hate. And it's amazing because what will happen is you, you might do that as a snapshot in time and move on with it and never do it again. Or if you do, you know, all of a sudden you're thinking, okay, I'm good. But then what happens is unless you're diligent with the work that you're doing, or better yet, not doing the work will creep back on you.

Okay?

Like it's easy for work to creep up on you and next thing you know, you now have yourself another full time job that you now have to continue to unwind it. And I think it's important to remember that if you're going to be the CEO, as Terea said, you have to think like the CEO, okay? And you have to get your team to start to think of you as the CEO. So a classic example of this is my team is notorious for this because they know the work that I do with LG Pass. They know that I know LG Pass inside and out. So what will happen is when my team has something that they're not sure about on LG Pass or if they need support on LG Pass, guess what they do? They come to me and they're like, hey, what about this on LGPass? And without even realizing it, unconsciously I just go, boom, here's the answer to it. And next thing you know, I'm inundated with my own team asking me about LG Pass and I'm thinking one day like, stop. I'm not LG Pass support. If I'm answering LG Pass questions, then I'm not doing other stuff in my own business. So you guys have to go through LGPASS support. Stop coming to me. And it's the equivalent like if you worked in a big company, can you imagine going to like, could you if you worked at Apple, for example, and like Tim Cook, you're like, hey Tim, my, my email's not working. What should I do? You wouldn't dare do that. Why would you waste the man's time or at Microsoft, you see Bill Gates walking by like, hey, what's going on? What's going, can you tell me how to work this thing in Excel? You wouldn't do that. You'd be like, better go get some help somewhere else. And that's the thing is like, you have to protect your time even as you go down this path because the work will creep back and it's a constant fight. So you have to keep fighting to protect your role within the company that you're creating.

I love that I agree with what everyone's biggest takeaways were as far as you've got to be flexible. It's great to buy assets, not have cash, that we're in the right business. And protecting your time. Being the CEO with Tree and Scott. And for me, in my 20th year as a full time land investor, my biggest takeaway is that if you want to go fast, go alone. Absolutely. So when I started, I was all by myself, land investing. But if you want to go far, go together and build a team. And even after 20 years of land investing, I'm learning more. I'm constantly growing as a CEO and a person. And looking at it from a business perspective, most businesses fail in their first five years. 50% of businesses that survive that they don't survive after 10 years. So to be doing this after 20 years, I remember thinking back in my investment banking days, these margins are ridiculous at the end of the day, 30% gross margin business. And I've always think about that and I think it reminds me of always be humble because I don't know anything about anything. Constantly be learning, constantly be growing. And after 20 years, I'm looking forward to the next 20 years of this business, hopefully. So we are now at that point in the podcast where of course I'm going to put myself on the spot because I think I've got a great tip of the week. Unless of course, Tate, you want to take it?

No, you go ahead, finish your thoughts. Finish us off strong for the year, my man.

All right, I'm going to finish it up strong. Okay, so I don't know about you guys, but I've got Dropbox, I've got Google Drive, I've got Evernote, I've got all these cloud based things. And then I'm just like, I have bookmarks here, there. Scott Bossman always has a great book recommendation and I might put that on my phone and bookmark it or my reading list, something or a note. Eric Peterson always will tell me, you need to go buy this, which is typically overpriced, but I'll make a note, you know, like an Evernote. Oh, go look for this when it's on sale. Something like that. So I can go on and on with everyone's tips, but I found the site called mymind.com and it's just. You can take a screenshot, you can make a note, and it uses AI to tag, and it's hard to describe until you use it, but I'm really enjoying it. It all lives in one place. Mymind.com you can try it for free, I think, for 30 days, and then it's like 12 bucks a month. But that's my tip of the week. So I look at Scott, he's like.

Sounds expensive.

It's not expensive. It's got an app and it's a desktop thing.

Okay, so why this versus Evernote, Mark, like, Evernote.

I knew. I knew you were going to say that. Because Evernote doesn't have AI. It doesn't. Doesn't automatically.

They just don't say it's AI. I mean, come on, this. There is AI built into Evernote. It has to.

Does it actually Buzzword? I think it might have, yeah.

I like.

I like the way it's. It's laid out.

You like the user interface.

I do like the ui. And I know from being a Surface guy you don't care about that, but I do. Being an Apple guy, it's important to me.

I mean, I don't know.

Well, I want to thank the listeners. Remind them the only way Scott and I are going to be able to debate Tips of the week is if you do us three favors. You got to follow rate. Review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of that review. Supportlandgeek.com I'm going to send you for free a signed copy of Dirt Rich again. Learn more about flight school. Go to the land geek.com training. See how the next 16 weeks could literally transform your life. Did I mention that flight school is not going to cost you anything? That investment, literally, you'll earn it back, 180 days or less, guaranteed. Just show us your work. Nothing to lose. Mangeek.com training all right. Are we good? We're good.

We're good.

All right, let's do this. 1, 2, 3, let's.

Freedom.

Not bad. All right, thanks, everybody. See you.

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 at thelandgeek.com forward/training Let freedom ring.