Panel discussion (hosts: Scott Bossman, Mike Zaino, Matt Forbes) about pre-marketing vacant land. Central issue: sellers sometimes pre-market a property generically before closing, but disclosing location/details can let buyers discover the parcel/APN and contact the original seller directly, stealing the deal. Recommended mitigations: use blind/generic pre-marketing, avoid sharing parcel/APN, delay public listing until deed is secured or closing imminent, and be transparent with buyers about ownership status (offer to provide recorded deed after close). The transcript uses real anecdotes and emphasizes buyer sophistication differences and legal/ethical boundaries around assignment/wholesale practices.
Chapters
Okay, so Dave, this is good. We need to clarify some things. He says y' all say. You all say. I like how he said you all. Instead of y', all, you all say that you market properties immediately once you get a purchase agreement. I would say yes and no to that. However, I've been burned twice now. When I tell a potential buyer the property location, I'm transparent to the buyer that I don't yet own the property. And both times the buyers have figured out the parcel number and who the seller was and then they went directly to the seller for the deal. Thoughts on how to avoid this? So, yeah, well, I mean, to me, pre marketing, I'm pre marketing that thing generically initially, right? Not, I'm not publicizing to the world the parcel number, but I am saying I have a five acre property in this area of the world and here are all the great things that you can do with this property. Contact me for more information. When they contact me for more information, it is like I don't want to necessarily be in that position. So I would say this is. And Mikey, I don't know, maybe you could talk about this a little bit. This is where I think Land Geek differs from some of the other training programs out there. There are other training programs out there who talk about assigning properties and that type thing. We don't really do that. We don't assign properties like we don't want to. In our eyes, that's almost this, it's almost reaching into brokerage territory. Like we're not licensed brokers. So this is kind of an interesting topic. Right, so how far do you go with this pre marketing thing?
The real. Yeah, I like, you know, there is pre marketing and blind ads and so on and so forth. But I like to have the deal pretty tight, you know, where, like where we got the deed in their hands, it's getting notarized. Like we're, we're at the point where, yeah, we're going to own this property so that we don't have to run into that situation.
But you're also like. So the difference is, I don't know who asked the question, but I'm imagining you're buying a property and so you're trying to pre market it. You got burned. That sucks. I'm sorry, man. That sucks. But I'm not buying a property. I'm buying another property. I've owned 10 just like it. So to Scott's point, I'm not marketing, you know, 615-324-9417B. I'm marketing. I've got five acres, it's on a mountain, there are trees. Here are some generic pictures, yada, yada, yada. I know that I've got that coming. I'm not going to get anywhere near telling somebody what the deal is and I'm always going to point them at the other properties that I have sold. So to me it's very different. When you're first starting out, you don't have 10 properties to, you know, to send them to on your website that have sold to. Say it's just like this, right? So if that's happened to you, sounds like it's happened to you a couple of times, then I would just ease off and what's, you know, what's another week? I mean, I bought two properties next to each other, literally across the street from each other and we're closing on one on the sale on Friday. I'm not going to go market the other one until Saturday. I can wait a week. Like it's all good.
Right.
But I don't want to, I don't want to confuse the current buyer that I have. Right. So like, you know, be smart and don't let that happen to you again because that really sucks. I've never had that happen to me. So that's actually. I don't think I've ever heard of that happening. I can't really think of that. I'm sure it does, but I think it does sometimes. Yeah. I mean that's. You have to be fairly sophisticated though.
I'm wondering, were they pre marketing that as a wholesale deal?
I don't think so.
No. It seemed like I was assuming it was retail deal, but maybe it was wholesale. But think about it. You have to be a sophisticated person to be like, yeah, no, let me, you know, give me some generics around that property, then go find the APM and then go actually go do the digging. I mean, before you started land, would you have any idea how to do any of that? Like, no. So that's interesting that that's the case. That's all. Like, I wonder if those aren't end buyers, if they're more people who are in the business who thought they could make some spread off of what you were selling it for. I don't know, that's just.
Well, I think, I think our buyers now though are more informed than ever because. Because I get people all the time. We get people all the time asking for parcel numbers and whatnot. They want to verify ownership with the county, you know, if they can Plug in a parcel number and verify that you own the property. That's huge. That's huge to a lot of people. So, yeah, I mean, you know, the other thing is, Dave, you know, I think I would just be transparent with the person. Don't make it seem like you're potentially misleading the person. Make it seem like, you know, like Mike Zaino said, listen, we are in the stages of closing with this deal. We anticipate closing on this deal in two days. When the deal closes in two days from now, I can send you a copy of the recorded deed. And that goes a long way with some of these potential buyers.
Yeah, Yeah.
I tell you what, Boswin, I haven't had a lot of people. You're like, yeah, what's the apn? I want to call the county. I want to verify ownership.
Oh, I get that a lot. We get that all the time.
I get a lot of people where I'm like, here's the apn. I want you to call the county and verify so that this is all in the up and up, like, I'm pushing them to do it.
Oh, yeah.
But I don't get. I mean, that's a sophisticated buyer. Maybe we work in different areas and we have different levels of sophisticated buyers, but somebody to go back into a deal like that and then go snake it from you. And that's. And that's happened multiple times.
Yeah, it's kind of weird, right?
Really interesting.
I like to know more details on that, actually.
Zaino, do you remember? So, okay, this is a really cool thing about this business. The longer you're in this business, you make friends, you make connections.
Right?
But the friends that you make connections with, you eventually make money with. So I'm not afraid to say that I've made money with Mike Zano, and I've made money with Matt Forbes. Yeah, Mike Zaino. Mike Zaino. Do you remember that deal, that Nevada deal we had last month or two months ago? That was a whale. Minnows, dolphins, and whales, right? We don't do many whales. That was a whale. The guy did his homework. Matt Forbes. The guy did his homework, and he said, hey, I see that you bought this property in November of 2019 for this amount of money.
Yeah, but that was a whale. That a whale is a sophisticated buyer. Somebody's gonna go buy, like, a buttload of land. And isn't somebody who's like, I saw your ad on Facebook, and I've never owned land, and I'd like to own some land, so can I get 140 million acres in the middle of nowhere. That's a yes, but that's a different guy. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I like that they're sophisticated because there's. So there are some unscrupulous people out there all day long. And so if I can prove my worthiness by having them go to the county and see my company name, there's. I gain all the credibility in the world. So I love it. I just don't see a lot of people coming to me and being like, well, you know, I uncovered by doing my accounting research X, Y and Z. Like I don't, I just don't. I just don't see that. That's all. That's just an. It's an interesting. It's a crappy thing to have happen to that person.
Right.
So like I don't see that happening a lot. I don't think that's a normal, that's a normal thing for people.
It's not normal, but it happens sometimes, I'm sure.
Yeah, sure it does, Dave.
We hope that helped.
Dave, I hope it doesn't happen to you again, man. Definitely wait till you close, I guess. I mean, if it's the simply file state and you know, maybe it's only a few more days, I don't know. But I hope you're on the verge.
Of closing like, you know, it's, you know it's gonna be done, right?
Yeah. And I get, you know, I get nervous about. It's never happened to me, but I do get nervous about that stuff. I'm really protective of. Like you spent a lot of money on, on mailers and a lot of money on an intake manager and a lot of money on due diligence and a lot of money on all this other stuff to blow it on the one yard line because I'm overzealous on the sales side.
I love the analogy. What one yard line? I love it.
Well, that's what it is. Like if you're. If your deal gets snaked after doing all that, that is. You are on the one yard line. So then I would just slow the process down. I would look and see where it's failing.
Right.
Really whiteboard it out and then fix it from there. Because that shouldn't happen to any of us. We shouldn't let that happen.
