How to Research Profitable Land Counties from Your Couch (My Exact System Revealed)

Sa.

John Burnett.

Scott Bossman. Oh.

Can you hear me? I can hear you.

Can you hear me?

I can't hear you. John. What's going on? We having tech difficulties. You can hear now?

Can you hear me? Can you hear me now?

Hold on. What's going on? How about now? No. What's happening there? I got you. Okay.

Okay.

Sorry for the brief technical difficulties there, folks. Welcome to Land Geek Nightcap.

Good.

Good to have you with us. We got a small crew tonight. Mark Podolski's overseas. I think he's. Is he in Italy? Is that where he is? I don't even know where he is. Paris. I don't know where he is. He was in the concrete. He was in the concrete jungle last week for like four or five days in New York City. And then they. They flew out. I can't remember exactly where he is. So that's where Mark is. And then our. Our buddy, the Zen master, Mike Zano is. He's in Martha's Vineyard tonight.

Man, everyone's so hoity toity tonight, right?

Let's go overseas. Let's go to Martha's Vineyard. Come on.

I mean, I've got cherries in my drink today. That feels a little.

Oh, that's exciting.

Exciting. No, I don't.

Oh, okay.

It's apple cider vinegar with cherries in it.

It's all good. It's all good, man. I mean, it sounds. Sounds really.

It sounds.

Yeah, it does. Sounds. Sounds. So, yeah. Awesome. Well, for those that. That don't know us, my name is Scott Bossman. I'm a land investor. And that is John Handsome Rob. It is not investor. Also a land investor. And for those of you chiming in tonight, maybe you've never seen us. We talk land investing every Tuesday night, 9pm Eastern. We stand and have a cocktail. We talk land investing. And tonight we have a very exciting topic. We're going to talk about profitable land counties. How to research profitable land counties from your couch.

Couch.

Our exact system revealed. But John and I were talking. I think if we revealed the exact system, we'd be here for much longer than an hour. And it would probably be a little bit boring. So we're gonna break it down. We're gonna keep it simple. And tonight, John, I thought what might be fun is if we do like the old. The old David letterman style top 10 reasons that. Top 10 reasons counting is a good county. How's that sound?

I think it sounds great.

All right.

Yeah, I like it. Well, cool.

And I tried to find some. I'm going to write on some cards and we'll like throw them up and we'll get into it.

Tablet behind me. It'll be great.

Nice. I like it.

I could only do it once.

And as always, community, please chime in with questions or comments or hijinks, whatever you want.

Like.

Preferably, hi, Jinx. Exactly. Because, yeah, we don't want to be too serious at 9pm at night. Well, it's 8pm early for you, John.

It's six o'. Clock. It's great. The night is young.

Night is young. Night is young.

I could have at least three more apple cider vinegars. This is great.

That's awesome. Okay, here, John, can you share while I'm setting up a few things on my end technical wise, could you share just a win that you've had with the community in the last week with. With your land business? That's always fun to hear as well. I'm gonna let you chat while I set a couple things up over here, if that's cool.

Let's see. So when did I have. So I bought a note. That's a win.

Oh really?

I know. So that was, I mean, yesterday, but basically I. Somebody needed some cash. They had sold a property on terms. So I bought the note it and got deeded the property. And so it's just instant added monthly payments and so.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

Yay you. So what, what's, what's the monthly payment look like?

Asking me numbers? Oh, sorry.

No, no, no worries.

I think it's like 2 or 300 over here.

How much in the.

Like 2 or 300amonth.

Nice.

Yeah, very good.

And is it a partial note, John? Or is it the, is it the whole note? How's that work?

The whole, the whole shebang? The whole shebang, yeah.

Very good. And you got it at a good price. Like what would you, what would you say? 50 cents on the dollar? Better.

Better than that. Yeah, yeah, 50 cents on the dollar for the remaining note. Balance is what I paid.

Okay, nice. Well, buying notes, selling notes, that's definitely a strategy that we utilize in this business. You know, selling notes, you can infuse some cash back into your business lot pretty quick and move on to the next deal. And then buying notes, it's nice because you, you get that passive income, recoup your money back over time to make some nice profit on top of it. So. Good. Good for you, John. That's a nice win.

It is a win.

It is a win. Very good. All right, well, I'm set up on Instagram now. So who's ready for. We're gonna do top 10 list. We're not gonna go. I think we're gonna go ascending order, like, order of most importance first. So here. So. So, John, if I were to ask you, I think you're gonna get this first one, the. The number thing that makes a county a good county, what would you say it is?

The first thing I would look for is, is anybody else there? Right. You want to make sure. Oh, did I get it?

Wait, is that backwards?

Other investors? Yes, I. I read gather junipers.

Oh, man. So was it backwards? Was it like.

No, it was, right. I think it's backwards for you. Forwards for me.

Backwards for me, yeah.

All right.

Yeah. So tell us more. Why would we want to work in counties where there are other land investors?

So you want to go, like, you know, one of the things we say a lot, it's kind of like fishing, right? When you go fishing, you want to go where you see other people having success, right? And so you want to go where the fish are, right? And it's the same thing with this, right? If you pick a county where there's literally nothing, no other land ambassador presence, like, the chances of that being a knockout county are very, very low. There's probably a reason you're not seeing anybody else there. So follow the other land ambassadors and find an area where other people are seeing success.

I love it. Follow John Burnett. If you see. If you see, you know, Mark Podolski or Tate Litchfield or Mike Zano working in a particular county, you could venture to guess it's a good county.

Right?

And you're exactly right, John. You want to go where other people are doing deals. It's just if other people are doing deals there, the way has been paved to a degree, Right? And you don't want to go it alone. One of the most exciting things when I started this way back when was I came across some data on the county website, and I saw Mark's name. I'm like, well, Mark's doing deals here, right? Must be a good county. And that was. That was nice. It was nice to see that. So, number one, go where the other land investors are. You know, go where the wild things are. Remember that book, John?

Yes.

Go where the other land investors are.

We are wild things. I think also it's. It's worth talking about because, like, the common thing, you know, I think the gut reaction people have when they hear go where the other land investors are is, well, what about the competition? You know? And so it you know, bears saying that, like, generally with the markets that we're dealing with, there's lots of room for competition because they're very, very big markets. Right. And so you want to go where their land investors are. And when you go to the right market. Right. There is room for competition. And you're not, you know, you're like, I. I went to a popular county and have done deals there for coming up on eight years in July. Right. The first county I ever mailed to. And so just because you see other land ambassadors there doesn't mean that you're. You're putting yourself in a position where there's too much competition.

I love it probably is probably a county I work in as well, I.

Would venture to say.

So. So. Okay, awesome. So, number one, go where the other land investors are. We're teaching the equation tonight for folks for. Well, for what makes a good county. I don't think equation is the right. The formula. We're teaching you. The formula tonight is formula and equation. The same thing might be.

I don't know.

All right, so number two. So we did jot these down ahead of time. We're coming prepared tonight, Cap. Very exciting.

Yeah.

So number two, I will reveal number two, John. And the second thing that we want to look for in a County, number two of 10, is data. Data. I need a Sharpie or something because the penmanship isn't. See if I can find a Sharpie over here. All right, Data. So first, to establish John Burnett works in the county. Second, we want to find some numbers. We want to find some data. We want to find some proof that land is being bought in this county for a deep discount. We want to see some proof that land is being sold in this county. So, John, if we talk about buying first, would you mind just sharing? Like, how would you maybe figure out what land is being bought for in this county? Because we have to really kind of hone in on the pricing, and we also have to take into account these counties are huge. So it's probably better to focus on kind of one small area of accounting, right?

Yeah. So I'd say as far as data is concerned, you're going to be pulling up comps, right? So, and by comps, I mean comparable properties that are either listed for sale or that have sold. And so for that, you know, a lot of times I buy in rural subdivisions, right. And when people hear subdivisions, they think of, you know, 10th of an acre lots outside of a city. A lot of times I'm dealing with larger properties. Right. You can have subdivisions of thousands of five acre lots. Right. And when you've got areas like that. Right. Then you can have a lot of comparables because there's a lot of comparable properties. Right. So what I'm looking for with the data is I want to see, you know, as people are listing their properties for sale, how much are they selling them for? And that gives me some kind of a benchmark of what I could potentially be selling the property at, which then allows me to, to identify what my offer price should be on that property.

Yeah, you're exactly right. I think, you know, it's a little bit easier to find data as far as what people bought land for in the county. Right. It's a little bit more difficult to find out what people sold land for in the county. Especially in counties where we own or finance a lot of land. Right?

Yeah, yeah.

Because if I own finance land for five, six, seven, eight years, you're not going to know what I sold it for until five, six, seven, eight years from now. Yeah, so, so you're right. We, we look at other land listings to kind of get an inkling as to what the market is like in that area. Right. You can sometimes find sold comps on Zillow, if it's a good Zillow area, or, or even some of the land sites as well, and Redfin. So see if you can find some data on the buy side and the sell side and that'll help you kind of hone in on, on, on the county. And if you see other land investors there and you can find data to support your journey into that county, then there you go. So that's number two.

I love it. Also, I forgot the baby is napping with me in this room, so he's going to briefly join us. He's waking up.

I love it, I love it, I love it.

Yeah. Our new segment, kid of the week.

Kid of the week. Yeah, we're gonna be busy. We're gonna be busy for like three months. Okay. That's the newest one. What's his name again?

This is the newest one. This is the precious one. His name is Deacon. Say hi.

That's right, Deacon. Hey, buddy. Look at that kid. I think this is the first baby John we've ever had on Nightcap or. Oh, wow, geek.

So your first baby's first. He needs a onesie. Baby's first nightcap.

Baby's first nightcap. I love it. All right, awesome. Okay, we're moving on to number three. The third reason, the third thing we're looking for in a county when we're first starting out as land investor. And it might be hard for you to guess this one, Valent. I don't know.

Okay, so I'm going to guess. Let's say I'm going fit your budget. Oh. Oh, sorry. I scared the baby. It's okay.

Oh, look at him. Oh, don't yell in the baby's ear, John.

I'm sorry.

Affordable. Oh, all right. Awesome. Yeah. So now, you know, John, my affordable is different than your affordable. I mean, you're. You're. You're swimming and in cash over there. But. But what might affordable mean really starting out? Like, what. What's your definition of affordable? Like, what does that mean to you?

So affordable. I think what you need to do is think about how much capital that you have to spend on land, and you want to spread that out. You don't want to throw all of that money on a single deal, Right? So if you've got, you know, if you've got $5,000, don't buy a $5,000 property, right?

Why not, John?

Because then you're. You are stalled out, right? So you think about it. Our business, there's kind of different wings of it, right? So there's acquiring property and then marketing property and selling property. Right? Now, if you spend all $5,000 on a single property, the whole acquisition side of your business is now shut down. Right. And so what we want to do, you know, and I think the strength of this model is that we're not trying to do a deal. We're trying to build a machine, Right? So we want. We want to effectively ensure that we can keep things running and build that machine while we go. Gotcha.

So momentum is important. It is awesome. Yeah. And I think, you know, I think if you can go into this with the notion that. Yeah, like you said, $5,000, you know, go in with the notion that, okay, I want to create some momentum for myself with five or even 10 properties. You can buy five or 10 properties with $5,000. And when you get a portfolio of properties like that, it does create momentum and it provides you with opportunity. If you buy a property for 5,000, you just got to wait around for that term sale. When we say terms, we mean owner financing. Okay. You got to wait around for that retail cash deal. And that's, you know, in my experience, a $5,000 property doesn't even move as quick as, like, a $1,000 property. Right?

Yeah.

So buy five $1,000 properties and they move faster.

And I think it's also worth saying, like, you know. Yeah. I mean, early on, you don't have to do like, your knockdown killer deals right at the outset. Right. Build the machine. You can do that with little things. You don't have to do it with big things. Right. Like so, I mean, even if you're starting out with a big budget, you can start with little properties and you can bring in big properties later. Right. That's totally fine.

Yeah, for sure. I wish Zano was here, because if he was, I would have him share. Well, I'll share the analogy anyway, so I think he probably originally came up with this because he's the analogy guy. But, John, have you ever heard us talk about minnows, dolphins and whales?

No, I haven't. Tell me about minnows, dolphins and whales.

So. So we think of our land deals like minnows, dolphins, and whales. We. We buy a lot of minnows because they're cheap and they move fast.

Okay.

And that's a good place to start land business. And then as you said, as time goes on, then maybe we step to a little bit bigger property.

Right.

So when we say. When we say minnows, we mean, you know, properties for less than $5,000. Maybe like one $2,000 properties. Right. Dolphins are maybe like five to ten thousand dollar properties. And then a whale could be, you know, ten thousand plus. I don't know about you, John, but those deals make me a little nervous. The whales.

Yeah, they do, right? Yeah.

Because you're parking. You're parking a lot of money in a property, and you're. And you're hoping it sells quick, right?

Yeah.

So anyway, that's the analogy I don't like else with whales. So number three. Oh, I didn't even put it on the cow. Being a slacker here. Number three, choose an affordable county for you. All right, that's number three. We're blowing through these and we're getting some comments. I think we'll come to those at the end. That'll be fun. Fun way to wrap it up. All right, number four. I like number four because. Just makes it easier. So, John, I'm gonna draw a picture here and. And you tell me what I mean by this.

Oh, let's see. I'm gonna say repeatability. That's.

That's a good word. That's your word lately. You like that word?

That's my word. My other guess would have been chocolate bar.

Yeah, chocolate bar. Or like an area that is. That is similar.

Right.

That has properties that are similar in size and Nature.

Right.

They're cookie cutter. Cookie cutter areas. Yeah. Because they're easy to price and they're easy to mail and they're easy to get. Yeah. I mean, I'm sorry. They're easy to price, they're easy to get a list, they're easy to mail.

Right.

And we find that with our model of land investing, it's really great to choose an area. We're really talking a subdivision.

Right.

There's thousands of subdivisions in the United States that are all platted out like this. So let's find a subdivision in a good county that's affordable for us and find a list of those property owners. And mail makes it a little bit simple. Agreed.

John. I like it. I agree.

You agree? Anything more on that topic?

I mean, I think that covers this. Yeah. Like repeatability. Well, repeatability, yeah. Repeatability means scalability, you know. Yeah. So the more consistent your variables are, the more you can delegate, the more you can automate, the more you can pull yourself out of those processes and then be working five to ten hours a week.

Yeah. Awesome. I mean, they're squares, right?

They were kind of squares. There's.

There's desert squares, there's tree squares, there's mountain squares, there's all types of squares. And land investing. I'm bringing back the desert square. Man. I love the desert. No, I'm just kidding.

Yeah.

All right.

It's still it. Yeah, I like it. I'm still thinking about different flavors of chocolate. Just like. Yeah, it's great. Something for everybody.

All right, so number four is we're going to call it platted subdivisions.

Okay. I like it.

That's. That's number four.

All right.

We're blowing through the top 10 reasons or the top 10 things that make a good county. See if I can add that up there. Okay. All right, already coming up to number five. Let's see. Oh, I love this one. I actually. I actually love this one. I don't know. Let's see if I can give you a hint, John. Okay, I'm gonna give you a hint.

You.

You tell me what you think this might be. My hint is fast.

Fast. Okay. I'm gonna say, do people want to buy this? I mean, like, so it has to sell fast, right? Like, you want to property more.

I'm thinking more like, quick deals.

Okay.

What makes it quick? What makes it quicker?

Oh, okay. I was starting to go down the fast. Like, are we, like, intermittent fasting? Is it like, what's, What's.

I should have specified.

I'm thinking exclusively in Terms of food right now. So, okay, so I would say that you want a county with good systems, right? Okay, so can you get good data? Good data. Can you file on Simplifile? Can you actually get a record of deeds?

E Tools.

Oh, I like it.

E Tools.

I thought I said, Tony, you need a camera.

The writing is horrible. Continue.

Sorry. Yeah, so, yeah, so can you submit your deeds digitally for recording? If you need to get a copy of a deed, do you have to spend three hours on the phone with the recorder and sending out mail requests with like handwritten checks to get that? Or is it something that you can actually just get digitally online? The easier it is for you to get a hold of the information you need for due diligence and to acquire the property. The easier it is again to scale that and turn that into a business.

Yeah, for sure. The easier it is to find data, the faster you can buy.

Right.

And. And the easier it is to. To notarize and record deeds, the faster you can sell. And so, so there's another tool in addition to county tools, Right. There are other tools out there that help us e record. And those, I mean, that's. That's pretty phenomenal when you think about it. We can buy and sell literally the same property in the same day, sometimes by double the E recording. So those services are amazing. There are even services now where you can e notarize. So I know people have utilized this. Maybe they're overseas and finding a notary is difficult for whatever reason. Well, if you work in a lot of states now, John, New Mexico, Colorado, I don't know about. Those are the ones I've notarized in the most. I'm sure there are others. Arizona, I think as well, you can use a service like onlinenotary.net and get deeds notarized and do do it all remotely. So we love, we love tech, tech, tech savvy counties, right?

Yep. Where it's at.

All right, so number five, E Tools find the counties.

Trying to think of what I'm gonna say when we get to 10.

I know we got five left. Ah, this will be easy. All right, number six.

Okay.

Now the last few here, I don't know if they're necessarily in order, but number six, another reason we liked certain counties is because. You're not going to be able to read this. Low taxes.

Taxes and fees. I read it.

Why? Why does it matter, John? Why does that help us in our business as we're, as we're becoming land investors?

So it lowers our holding costs for One, right. You buy a property and you have to pay, you know, a hundred dollars a month for an HOA fee or something like that, Right. Then you're kind of like, it's kind of like your owner financing that, but forever. And so you want something where your holding cost is low and your holding costs would be, you know, are there any taxes? Is it in an hoa? Are there HOA fees, those types of things. The lower your, your holding costs, you know, then like, the easier it is for you to. To hold that and then ultimately sell it. Right. Because high holding costs, you're. You're passing that on to your seller. It makes it harder to sell. So I'd say that would be one big reason. And then. And I had another good reason, but I got distracted by my baby. Yeah, I think that, I think that, that it makes it easier to buy and hold and it makes it ultimately easier for you to sell. Oh, the other reason is that if somebody is not paying. So, you know, again, like all by properties, regardless of whether or not somebody has back taxes owed on the property. But as the back taxes are 20, 30, $40 a year, somebody hasn't paid taxes for four years, they do not want that property. Right. So it's like, it's a good indicator of, of kind of their emotional stance as far as the property is concerned. But again, like, I'll bribe you regardless of taxation status, but it is a good indicator of, you know, but his emotional standing for a property. All right, okay. I'm going to relocate the baby really quick, so.

Okay, you go ahead. I got you. Yeah. So low holding fees are important. Know what you're getting into.

Right.

There are some areas out there that have property owners associations who, you know, where John said fees could be 100 bucks a month to be a member of that association. We don't want to work in those areas. Typically, sometimes when you work within city limits, there are some municipality fees like availability fees for sewer and water. Those can add up quick. Those are also things you need to look into when you're doing due diligence on a property. If I'm going to buy a property, I'm not only checking into back taxes, but I'm checking into back POA fees and back municipality fees as well. All right, he's back.

I'm back. I heard all of that. You did that great job. That was a good show. It was very informative. Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate it. I was feeling the pressure. All right, so let's see. I think we got. I Mean, we got three left. Maybe we'll come up with another one. So. Oh, let's see here.

What.

What hint can I give you here, John? Vroom, vroom, bang, bang.

Oh, I like it. I thought you were just gonna draw a picture of a tent. So, recreation. Can you.

Yeah.

Recreational appeal. Can you property. Yeah. Can you legally have fun on your property? So things like thinking about, you know, can you camp on the property? Like what can you do on the property? But camping, it's a big one, right? Can you legally camp on a property? Doesn't mean. If you can't legally camp on a property, doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't buy it. But it might be a little bit harder to sell, right? If, if you can camp on a property, then that means that like a lot of times I'll, I'll sell to people. They want a spot that they can build on someday, like, you know, like a off grid cabin that they can build at some point in the future. But in the immediate term, it's their own private campsite. Right. And so there's immediate value to them in that recreational appeal. And so. Yeah, I love it. I love it.

I think you're exactly right. I think, I think our most marketable properties are the ones that you can camp on, live on, build now, build later.

Right.

Scenic, near mountains, near lakes, that type of thing. A step down from that are properties maybe you can't camp on, maybe you can build on them, but you can't camp on them. And then, you know, people are trying to sell land to. I own the land, I should be able to camp on it. Yes, Mr. Buyer, you should be.