From Broke College Student to Successful Investor, Michaela Can Help You Navigate Land

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the Land Geek with your favorite niche real estate website, thelandgeek.com and on this week's Art of Passive Income podcast, it is my privilege, my honor. I am so excited for you to introduce our latest and greatest land geek coach, Michaela Sorny. Michaela, how are you?

I'm great, Mark, how are you?

I'm great. I'm so excited that you're joining the coaching team. I'm sure most of you have already heard Mikayla's story on a previous podcast when she had just come out of one on one coaching. But now she is going to be giving back and sharing all her wisdom with our clients and helping them become like a little mini Michaela. So, Michaela, let's rewind the tape and talk about how you got into the land business and, and what you've been able to accomplish.

Yeah, so I, I found you, I found the Lane Keep program back in the summer of 2018 on a podcast. I was listening to single family rental podcasts, turnkey, multifamily, all different sorts of real estate podcasts since I knew I wanted to get into real estate. But at the time I was a senior going into my senior year of college, so didn't have too much money. So I, and it was a simple, repeatable process and I thought, why not give it a shot? So I got the toolkit, then flight school and then coaching from there.

Amazing, amazing. And so because you were cash constrained, how did, how did you start?

So I started actually I would wholesale a lot of properties at the beginning, but I spent, I also spent a lot of my own time doing it. Since then, I've quickly hired it all out because I didn't want to create. I hear, I would hear your stories of people creating second full time jobs and they're working 40 hours, for example, in the land business. And that's not something I wanted to do after school. So I wholesaled a lot of properties back in the day to get the cash flowing and kind of snowball that and did the work myself. But now it's pretty much all hired out. And I love those terms, deals now.

Yeah, yeah. So tell me what's been your last, say six months, your favorite deal you've done?

I don't know if this was in the last six months, but I have a favorite deal and. Well, first of all, preface it. I love all the singles, the deals that are repeatable and I know what I'm going to sell them for and I know exactly what to Buy them for. I love those deals. It's kind of the backbone of my business and what I imagine as I, I stack up those deals and then once I have all that passive income, I'm allowed to. But I have more time to look for like the whale deals or the bigger deals. So one of the whale deals was I bought two adjacent lots on had Gulf access on the east coast and we bought them both total for 4,000 and we sold them on terms, both total for 100,000. So I think that deal is going to be pretty hard to beat. Uh, I don't know if it's within six months, but I don't know if, if I'll be able to beat that one.

That's a crazy deal. I, I love this business.

That's amazing. Insane.

So how many deals do you think you've done now in the past five years?

I've done a few hundred. Um, I went back actually a little while ago. I've done a few hundred. Yeah. Over the past five years. It just continues to grow and, and snowball and, and all of that. I, I started with cheaper properties and, and then just move naturally to more expensive ones. So less quantity I'd say now, but more net profit there now.

Yeah. So looking back and is there anything, knowing what you know now, you would have done differently to start, I think starting.

So I was really nervous about taking on any debt because I didn't know if the business model worked. I didn't know if I could pay it back. I was, you know, kind of just starting out my life. I didn't want to get in debt over an investment that I didn't know. So I was really scared of that. And now there's so many creative ways you can get started with if you're cash constrained. So looking back, if I were to do it all over again, I would land our properties. I would maybe JV some deals just to be able to do larger deals. And I think I missed out on a lot of deals because I was very strict with my criteria. But yeah, I would land our more. I would sell more on terms which I think is what most people say looking back. And I would just look at creative financing options that are out there.

Okay, excellent. Excellent. And so for people starting out and they're going to want to know your story and they're going to want to sort of be able to replicate what you've done and because you're, you're so young, do you, do you think that it's going to be difficult for somebody let's say middle age. That's got a family and kids. Like, how. How would you reconcile? They're gonna say, oh, well, Michaela must have had all the time in the world to. To work this business. How. How would you answer that?

Yeah, I would say, I would argue that if your why is big enough, you'll succeed in this. It's the deals are very repeatable type of deals. It might seem complicated and there's a lot of moving pieces at the beginning, but once you have a good foundation, it's extremely repeatable, and then you just scale it from there. So I would say if you're wise, big enough, if you're going to show up day in, day out and do what you need to do. Mail and market, I think anyone could really succeed at this business. I know, of course, some tools are very techy and that might help certain people, but I think if you just show up and mail and market, anyone can really do this business.

How much time did you spend because you were a senior in college? So how much time were you spending in the business on your learning curve? And then how much time are you spending now in the business?

Back then in school, I was probably spending a few hours a day maybe on it. But again, I was, I. I've done every single part of my business, which is kind of interesting. Um, I would literally scrub counties, websites to build a list. I did. I copied and pasted, you know, the hundreds of thousands of names. I did that also kind of a funny story. So I was in college and I would get free printing. So I would use my free college printing to print out, offer letters and mail them just to kind of like save expenses. So I've done literally everything in my business, and I think that's, that's. It's kind of helped me. And when I hire out people, it's interesting. I can say I've done it all. Really?

Yeah. I think that's, that's truly delegating as opposed to abdicating, which, which we don't want people to do. We want them to know it well enough, though. That being said, do you have to, you know, know excel well enough? I mean, no. There's certain tasks you can just. You don't need to know. You can go on fiverr, but for the most part, you need to know the fundamentals well enough to teach it to somebody else so that you know how much time it should take and, and, and do all that. So what was your. Your like? So now how much time are you spending in the business?

Yeah. Now I spend maybe few hours a week here or there. It really runs by itself. And that's kind of the beauty of, I think, the business that I created. I wanted it like this to run by itself. So a few hours a week, I approve certain things. Or if maybe I want to start a new initiative that we're doing in the business, expand a certain place or certain. Through a certain tool, I'll test it out myself or. Or hand pick someone, hire someone to test it out. But really, it's very light touch at this point.

Nice. And how much is your passive income at this point?

Tens of thousands a month.

Wow. Fantastic. So your hourly rate's pretty good.

Pretty good, yeah. I actually saw a quote. I think it was Elon Musk. He was like, it's way easier to just make $10,000 more than to try to figure out how to save it. And it's so true.

Yeah, no, it is true. It is true. Although people who are listening to Dave Ramsey are like, no, it's not. But it's. Yeah, that's so funny. So what would you say is the thing that you would outsource last, knowing what you know now?

I would probably say I think the general answer is sales, and I would tend to agree with it just because it's important to know what the customers are wanting. And now, of course, you can talk to your sales manager. I think it's really important to stay in touch with them, but I just think you have to go through the reps of it. So I would say sales manager. Or my second choice would be an acquisitions manager, because I really think we make the money on the buy, and buying is so important, and you really need that pipeline. So if you have an acquisitions manager who's slacking or you don't keep. You're not keeping your eye on them enough, I think that could really, really hurt your business. So those would be my two answers.

Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. No, I agree for sure. I always say county, research and then sales. But it's true. I mean, we do make our money on the buy. Absolutely. So from when you've started to now, what changes have you seen technically? And if someone's not technical, what would your advice be?

So I've seen a lot of changes over the course of the business. So another interesting tidbit or fun fact is my first sale was on ebay, so don't see that anymore. So ebay and I first would market on Craigslist. Then after Craigslist, it was Facebook and the land websites. And, you know, just kind of evolved from there. So I think it's always interesting to see what different marketing platforms are out there and keep up with that. And then as far as the acquisition side, I think people just get really creative now it's a little bit hard to find deals in certain areas, so you could go to other areas where it's easier or get more creative with your marketing, I think.

Awesome. Awesome. So what was the first thing you outsourced and would you still keep that as the first thing you would outsource?

I think the first thing. There's two options that come to mind. I'm not sure which was first, but I think the first one was a Craigslist poster. At the time, I was like, I can't do this. I don't know. I didn't even have the time to do that. I was like, this is just too much. So I think it was that one or if it wasn't that another one was probably just a list scraper for me. And it was like, you know, $3. Someone in the Philippines from Upwork, maybe I would do that. But also now I'd pull my data in different ways. I'll either can pull it from Datatree or a lot of the county websites. You can just pull it from there for free. You know, select what areas you want and just download it to. To a CSV file. So I don't know if that's necessary at this point.

Okay, awesome. Awesome. So let's talk about you becoming a coach. So we're expanding our coaching program and I tapped you on the shoulder, you heeded the call. Why do you want to coach?

I think for me, this might sound a little cheesy, but it just, like land has opened so many doors in my life and truly, truly changed my life. And again, I know that sounds really cheesy, but it's actually true. I can't even imagine being here, you know, five years ago. It's just incredible. And like I said, so many doors are open now and so many different things are available to me. So just being able to give that back to people. And I started with little to no money. And I know people start in different situations. Maybe they don't have a lot of time. There's different levers you can pull to make the business work. I just, I think it's a really repeatable business. And I think if you, like I said before, show up day in and day out, you know, anyone can do it. So I would. I love helping. Helping people do that. And Mark, you know, I always said to you even before this, if anyone ever, you know, wants an honest review of the land, geek, give them my number, let them call me. And every time they did, it was just, it's really nice to talk to people about land. Not a lot of people get it. So that's another thing that I love about it.

That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah, it is one of those interesting niches where people are like, oh, everyone's going to start doing land and there's going to be so much competition. Like, well, no, I don't think most people even understand it. Yeah, I get some weird looks. Yeah. I mean, it's. If you're in our world, it feels like that. But for, you know, most people, they're like, what do you do? How do you do that? You flip land. Like, why would anyone buy land?

Yeah, I think like 90% of the times I tell people, oh, real estate. And oh, what? Multifamily is the response. No, I deal with vacant land. Oh, do you develop it? It's like, nope, don't develop it. Oh, do you entitle it? Nope, I don't. Don't really entitle it either. What do you do with it? I flip it and it's just like, yeah, weird looks from people outside the niche. But I get it. Yeah. I guess when you're in it, you see like, you know, different people talking about it and, you know, scarcity mindset. But it's still pretty small, I would say.

Yeah, I mean, it's. Yeah. I mean, relative to the market, I think it's. It's tiny, for sure. So now there are recession fears. Have you, have you seen any kind of economic hit yet in your business, and do you think there's going to be one?

I've seen a little bit on the sell. On the sales side, our prices just steadily increased a ton over the past few years. And we do hear some feedback of, oh, I can't afford it or I'm going to save or maybe, maybe not now, maybe in the future. So we have seen a little bit of that, but just make your prices irresistible. So we look to make them 500 to maybe $1,000 down, which I know is on the expensive side for land flipping. We were thousands of dollars down a little, but 500 to maybe 1000 or 1500 down, and we like to say a couple hundred, maybe a month. And it's pretty irresistible for some people. So we've seen that, but we've also seen people, they don't like the stock market, they don't want to hold cash. They really like hard assets so they like land. So that's on the sales side and then on the buy side, on the acquisition side, we're just really hammering down our prices. People are telling us, oh we just got offered X amount a year ago and we tell them that and we say I'm sure you know, I'm sure you know how the market's changed in the past year and it's just not, it's not a price we can pay now. So we're really hammering down our acquisition prices at this point.

Yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. So for someone that is going to be working with you, what, what can they expect?

I like to, I, I don't like to hear excuses. So, so I think I understand everyone, you know, different things going on or they're busy or whatnot. But I think long story short, if I could do it, anyone can really do it. So yeah, probably no excuses. I love tech. I have a background in computer engineering so anything tech related, any way to optimize, automate, make processes out of your business? That's what I geek out on. That's what I love.

I love that, I love that. Yeah. And because the last thing we want is anyone to do this and build themselves another job and you've been so just absolutely laser focused on this is a repeatable business and this, you know, those singles, they add up and once you've solved your money and your time problems, you're totally free to do whatever you want. So Mikayla, what have you been doing with your time freedom?

Working on a couple exciting new projects. One of the beauties in my business, like I said, I spend maybe a few hours a week on my land business so I do have some other projects. They're all linchpinned in land so I'm very hot on land. I think I always will be. But yeah, working on a couple of other exciting things.

Awesome, awesome. Well I can just tell you anyone who has the privilege and they'll be very, very lucky to be working with you either on a group basis. I know you've had some one on one flight school calls with people and then certainly as you start taking on your one on one clients, I know that you're going to be able to help our clients accelerate and get the results that they want and help them change their lives in the same way you were able to change your life. So it's very exciting times and I'm personally just so proud and so excited to end and just lucky to have you on the team. So thank you for heeding the call.

I'm excited. Yeah. Thank you.

So, Mikayla, your mentorship has been invaluable as always, but now we're at that point in the podcast. Right. I'm going to ask you for your tip of the week. A website, a resource, a book, something else actionable for the art of passive income listeners to go improve their businesses, improve their lives. What have you got?

All right, so another, Another GPT tip. I'm sure everyone's tired of it, but this one's auto GPT. It uses GPT 3.5 and 4, and it basically will run scripts for, and run tasks for you. So instead of having to prompt chatbots each time, you can run it in continuous mode or you can run it. So you have to say yes or no. It's. It's really cool and I think far better than Chat GPT. So it has access to the Internet, which is amazing. So I was watching some demos and I use it myself, but I was watching some demos and a guy like, for example, use it to order a pizza. It goes, goes online, goes to the website, all of that. It could speak, you can integrate Twilio, it could call people. It's pretty fascinating. I'm using it a lot for market research, essentially, like a screen scraper on steroids. That's really what I'm using it for at this point, but has a lot of other really cool features there.

Yeah, that's so geeky. I love it. It's just autogpt.com is that right?

Yeah, you can go there, you can look up. It's a little bit more complicated to set up than ChatGPT. You have to download Python and, and some APIs, but you could just look it up on YouTube, how to set it up, I guess, because my, my background is computer engineering, so I'm like, oh, cool, I'll set it up. But you can look it up on YouTube and figure out how to set it up. It's pretty easy.

Yeah. You and Scott Todd love Python. He loves Python. It's amazing what, what you can do now. And it's. Yeah. I mean, I was, I was listening to a podcast with Derek Sivers and he was talking about getting out of tech reliance. He's like, why, why do we have our. Put all our stuff on the cloud and I have friends who, they lose their photos and we're just so dependent. He's like, it'd be like going to your kitchen Asking someone to make you a sandwich. Like, no, it's not, it's not hard to make a sandwich. You just have to do that. And so it's just sort of getting over that initial fear and just learning it step by step. It's. Yeah, nothing is that, is that hard. Once you start getting into it and there's, you know, lots of clear instructions, what's the worst thing that could happen?

Right? And I think a lot of people, they'll say, oh, you know, why would I want a bot to order me pizza? Like, that doesn't make sense. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. It's just like a, a good example where if you're, I think a lot of these tools, like, I just. People don't even know where to start, I think, or. It's kind of overwhelming to see how you can implement it in your life, but once you get in it, it's pretty fascinating.

Yeah, absolutely. Maybe we'll have a done for you auto GPT service where we'll just help them set it up, you know, and they don't have to worry about it kind of thing. I mean, would it, would that be difficult to do?

No, it's not really. Yeah, you just need a few. You need like an open API. OpenAI API. If you want, like voice Twilio, there's a couple different things you can integrate in. Not difficult, though. Think you need Python on your computer.

All right, fantastic. Well, my tip of the week is. Learn more about Mikayla at Lifetime Properties USA.com Lifetime PropertiesUSA.com Check out her website. And look, we got to talk about our sponsor this week, which is Flight School. Learn how the next 16 weeks can transform your life. Go up that mountain of land, investing safely, quickly, efficiently with Scott Todd Azure Sherpa. Start building that passive income without any headaches. No renters, rehabs, renovations or rodents. You can get on a coaching call with Mikaela if you get stuck. And by the way, I know you're thinking, oh, the tuition, the tuition, it ain't gonna cost you nothing, guaranteed you're gonna make back that money 180 days or less. Just show us your work. And I always talk about, at Michaela Bootcamp, you're like, well, how much is coaching? I'm like, what this, what Michaela says doesn't cost you anything. It pays for itself.

That's right. Yeah, that's right.

So it'll definitely pay for itself. Learn more. Go to thelangic.com forward/training thelangic.com forward slash training. And dear listener, if you're getting value from this, do us a little favor. Follow rate. Review the podcast, Send us a screenshot of that review. Support thelangic.com I'm going to send you a signed copy of Dirt Rich. I'm very excited, Michaela. Dirt Rich 2 is coming out soon. How to scale your land business.

Nice. That's awesome. Did you settle on a name yet?

No, not yet. I think. I think. I think she's dirt rich too.

I like it. Yeah?

Yeah. I mean, it's not that. Not that, I guess, creative, but it'll be very niche book. It's not going to be, you know, an overview. It's gonna be a very detailed book of kind of think about Peter, is it not Peter? I forget his name. The virtual freedom guy. Think about virtual freedom for, like, land and just step by step, like, how much should you pay for VA and, you know, for this person, the intake and all those things.

That's awesome.

Yeah, it's gonna be pretty good. All right, are we ready to do this?

Yeah, we're ready.

One, two, three. Let. Let freedom.

Freedom ring.

All right, thanks, Michaela.

Thanks.

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 forward slash training. Let freedom ring.