Intake Challenges—Dealing With Deal Breakers

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek, with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and on this week's roundtable podcast, we have the most dangerous woman in the world, the terrorist hunter, Mimi Schmidt. How are you, Mimi?

Great. How are you, Marv?

I'm good, I'm good. We've got. I love it when you call me Big Papa Tay. Litchfield.

Hey.

Hey, everybody. Of course, the nightcap meister, completely sober, Scott Bossman.

Always. Except for Wednesday nights at 10:30.

Except for Wednesday nights at 10:30. Okay, we've got the technician, Eric Peterson. What's up, Eric? Not much.

Just hanging out with you guys.

It's always a great day when we can all hang out. All right, we got the Bearland. Aaron Bearland. How are you?

Hey, doing well.

Great.

How is everybody?

All good. Good. And last but not least, you know him, you love him. The brain, the professor, the mini bat. Scott Todd from scotttodd.net landmodo.com Most importantly, if you're not automating your Craigslist and your Facebook postings, postingdomination.com thelandgeek Scott Todd. How are you, Mark?

I'm great. How are you?

I'm good, I'm good. But I got my blood pressure up this afternoon because Scott Bossman's deal has got me a little. A little what's? I don't know. It's like a combination of, like, anxious and hangry. Like that feeling.

All right, well, I can't wait to hear about it.

Let's discuss it. So, Scott, walk us through this real life scenario.

All right, so I had a pretty interesting situation here in the last week. Well, started two weeks ago. I took a guy, took a call at boot camp, actually, from a guy who was interested in selling his property. I had offered him around $1,000 for his one acre property, and he was really thrilled that I'd contacted him. He had. He's owned the property for 35, 40 years and claims he's never gotten an offer on his property before. He's in his. He's in his 80s. He said this couldn't have come at a better time. We're took. We're looking to offload this property, and I have a couple other properties. And the reason he called me was because I'm from Wisconsin and he had lived in Wisconsin. So we had a great conversation. You know how you get on the phone with people sometimes and, you know, you just like to talk to him? That's part of the fun of the job. So we had a good 20 minute conversation, not only about his property, but about his life in Wisconsin and where he lived and where I live and what we do and all that. We even had a couple physical therapy questions. So. So we established a really great relationship. I told them, you know, we'd go through the preliminary due diligence and do the deal likely in the next week if everything came up okay. So, you know, my offer was $1,000. Comps in the area are maybe $4,000 cash. So a week went by. He needed a couple phone calls because he wasn't quite sure of the process. But, you know, all said, you know, I'm about an hour into this deal, plus my due diligence and all that on the side, and he decides to purchase from me. So he gave me a call Friday, kind of in a panic, because he said he was going to be on the way to the bank to get the deed notarized. And that day he received another offer for $2,000 for the property. So my heart sunk a little bit because I really wanted this property. Got a little nervous, and I just went with the, you know, went with the flow. We had another great conversation. I explained to him what we do and how I thought that offer was a little bit high and how, you know, I'd really like to take this off your hands. So can. Can we, can we settle on $1,200? And he thought that was fair at the time. So got off the phone thinking that he was going to go through with the deal. Turns out he called the other party.

And.

They sold him on $2,000 price. So I had a discussion with him again yesterday, and he said, scott, I'm really sorry. I've really enjoyed our time together, but I'm going to go with this other offer. I can't not let it go. Well, all said and done, I talked him into 1750. The only reason I agreed to that price is because I already have a buyer on the line who I told him it was on agreement. He gave me the 250 document processing fee. So got a buyer on the line, and the numbers make sense. But it brought a whole new challenge to this in the last few days because, number one, I had to renegotiate to keep the property, although it helped to have that relationship with him. Number two, he was confused because the offer letters were very similar and he had never gotten any offers before. So that's the story. All right, well, it's kind of an interesting one.

And you. And, you know, the Other party.

I know who the other party is.

So hopefully they're not a coaching client or a flight school client because their offers too high.

Right, right. Their offers too high based on the area. So, you know, this points to the. To the importance of county research as well.

Right, right. So, Eric Peterson, what are your thoughts?

Well, I mean, I don't know. As Scott's telling that story, you know, part of me feels like, you know, that seller, if he signed my agreement at 1200 or whatever it is, and he's gonna turn around and accept someone else's offer after that, I mean, I'm not too happy about that to begin with. I mean, honestly, I would probably have a real upfront conversation with him, telling him we had an agreement. You know, I've done all this work, and, you know, we need to move forward with what we agreed on. I think I would have been kind of upset.

And.

I just don't know if I would have continued with it, honestly. I mean, to me, yeah, I know he's got a buyer, and that's the hard part.

Right.

Because in my mind, you know, that's an ethical problem I have with this seller, is that, you know, again, assuming he had a signed agreement and everything, you know, he's. He's going back on his word. And that. That gets to me.

So I.

It's hard to say without being in that situation how I would have handled it. Honestly.

The only reason I took it was because I had a buyer and Fred and I had established a relationship, like, this guy's a nice guy. Right. And then he's pulling at my heartstrings.

Scotty, ain't that nice?

Yeah.

Let me tell you, if he's a nice guy, he would have stuck with the agreement he made.

You are correct. You are correct.

Oh, look at that. Look at that. That's being that nice of a guy.

Bear land. Aaron, what would you have done?

Well, why don't you come back to me? I had a technical difficulty and just got back on. I'd like to hear somebody else's.

All right, let's go to somebody that doesn't live in Amish country. Rudy Schmidt.

So I kind of had this happen just in general. I was in my Florida market. I was paying between 1800 and $3000 for property, and a woman sent out a mass mailing offering, $6,000 for the properties. It basically put me out of business in that market. Truly, Honestly, Scott, I think I call that investor and say, hey, talk to them about their due diligence process and Say, hey, you can actually get your property for a little cheaper than this. And everyone listening. It's pretty easy to find what local investors are paying in the area. If you can get the sales data, do a search for owners that end in llc, go see what they're paying for the property. It's not that tough if you don't have the data. You can look online individual, find a couple of competitors and look online, do individual property searches and see what people are paying wholesale for these properties. Yeah. Because you can get them for cheaper. And that just makes your profitability on the land deal better and in general makes it better for our market and all of us investors. So I think, Scott, I called the guy and talked to him about his due diligence. He could save himself some money in the future.

Yeah, I think that's a good idea.

Yeah. Yeah. Tate, what are you thinking?

Scott?

Hey, Tate, you're on mute.

There we go.

Sorry. I agree with what everybody else has said. I'd be a little upset about it, but, you know, had I not already had a buyer lined up with the guy, I probably would have told him, you know, if you can go get more money elsewhere, good luck, but I got cash in hand today to pay you. And I'd also let him know that there's a lot of people out there who are going to make high dollar offers, but when it comes time to writing the check, they often get cold feet. And I'm an actor and I take action. When I decide I want something, I buy it immediately. And I think that's something that sets me apart from everyone else, is I'm not afraid to buy this land. I'm not in this because it's fun or it's a hobby. I'm in this to purchase your property. So if he thinks he can go get money, a higher dollar somewhere else, well, then I understand that's what he needs to do. But when you come back to me and want me to buy your land, I'm not gonna pay you the same price as I offered before. That's what I'd tell him.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's the reality, though. That's the reality.

What would you do?

Well, Scott's gonna ding me. I know. I just have a feeling Scott's gonna ding me. He's gonna say that I tainted our market by buying the guy's property. Is 1750.

No, here's the deal. I've ran into this problem where somebody in my own flight school class mailed on top of me doubling the offer.

Right.

Like I was like, livid over it. Okay, but we had a buyer. Same situation. We had a buyer and I didn't double my offer, but I did come up like 50%. And I was like 50 furious over it. Like, what the. But I had a. I had someone who was ready to buy the property. I knew it would sell. And I'm like, just buy it, whatever, because now I own it. And they didn't get it right now. That said, if I didn't have a buyer lined up or I didn't think that, like, I was going to sell it, like, tomorrow, then I would have told the guy to go pounds end. And the reason is, is because I would have said to him, hey, listen, here's the deal. I have cash in hand that's ready to come out to you tomorrow. Like, I can literally. You give me a deed today, I can have you cash within two days. Within 40 hours, you'll be at the bank. If you accept this other guy's deal, he's going to have to start this whole process all over again. It's going to be weeks and weeks and weeks. And you know what? It's not going to happen. And I actually had a situation like that. The guy actually had my deed in hand. He refused to sign it because he wanted another $150. He was an attorney. And I told him, I said, no, you can go pound sand because I'm not paying you $150. This is the deal, and you've agreed to the deal. You told me to mail you the deed for signing, even though you had. Even though you had this other offer in hand. You told me you were going to go ahead with it and you didn't do it. And so basically, you know, like I never did. Now, what's funny is that he told me who gave him the other offer. He told me the guy that gave him the other offer. And I knew who it was. And I'm like, well, that guy is never, ever, ever going to. That guy is never, ever, ever gonna close. And I kid you not, he said, well, I'm gonna go take it. And then you know what, Mark? The guy went onto the master or the Land Geek mastermind call that day and basically said, hey, guess what? I got a deal. Anybody want to buy it for me for like an. So I make like $100 on the deal because he didn't have any cash.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I know what I would do in this situation, Scott, but before I tell you, let's go to bear land. Aaron. Bearland what would you do?

Yeah, you know, I've run across it maybe a couple times. I was able to buy from the person, I think each time. But one of the tactics is that, you know, explain to them. A lot of people are going to try to trade down. You know, they're using high offers to get high responses. And then once they do the due diligence on the property, what they're going to find is that they need to come back at you with a lower amount. And, you know, I explained that I'm like everybody else. I'm ready to buy it today, and I'm not necessarily gonna do that. If the numbers don't make sense, I just simply won't be able to buy it from you. But if they do, we're good to go, you know, And I've pretty much had people tell me, okay, and since, you know, sometimes it's like, you know, since I was the first one that they accepted, they're gonna stay with me. That was somebody with some integrity, that sort of thing. But, you know, I guess it can happen. And I think people might do that too, because I'm. You know, sometimes when you're first starting off, you might have a little bit high of an offer because, you know, you're worried you're not going to buy something. And once you've done it for a while, you figure out that, man, there's so much out there, you're going to get so many accepted offers, you know, stay. Stay where you need to be. You know, unless there was a mistake in the market research at the beginning, which is possible, too. So it happens, I guess.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, and that's the nice thing about this, is that it's a really rare occurrence. Right? I mean, it's a big market. We don't see this happen a lot. But I will tell you that I know exactly what I've done, what I'll do. If this is me, number one, I'd go to the seller, say, look, we have. Like, I would be like, what Eric said, Like, like, look, we made an agreement, okay? Is the extra thousand dollars worth a loss of your own integrity that you're gonna go back on your own word? Like, I know if it was me, thousand dollars wouldn't be worth that to me to go to bed at night knowing that I spent an hour with this guy. We're from Wisconsin. I talked to you about physical therapy. And then all of a sudden I'm thinking, you're just this nice guy and all you care about is the Money, right? We live in a civilized society, Fred. Is your word nothing? I'm laughing. I'm laughing because, I mean, I would be just. I don't think this would work beside myself, like, oh, you know, it's business. Like, no, if it's really just business, I can sue you. We have a verbal agreement. I'm not going to sue you over a thousand.

He would see, the guy would say, mark, you don't understand. $1,000 might be okay for you, but a thousand dollars is a lot of money for me. I'm an old man. I'm 80 years old.

I really need everything.

I'm like, you know What?

My wife, 80 years old.

You're on that back nine, man. I don't want to go into bed knowing I'm living clean. Now, that. That being said, that being said, the second thing is I'm gonna. I'm gonna reverse it, right? Number. Number two, right? I've done this in this own marketplace. I've given out high offers. And then you know what I do, Fred? I trade down. I find all the flaws during due diligence. I string you along, 10, 14 days. I don't close at 2,000. Right? Did you put a well in? Are there utilities? Right. Oh, it looks like your neighbors are selling for a thousand. And then I go back down and I renegotiate at $1,000. You want to take that chance, let me know. And then I'd hang up on him. Then I'd call the person that I know made the offer. I'd say, look, I've got this guy. I spent an hour of my time, and I have a buyer. Back off. You call the guy right now and say, I know that I sent you an offer for $2,000. It was wrong. My offer is 800 and hangers. And I'd be on conference call with that guy to make sure that he did it. This is a community. Does the community mean nothing? Is it all about money?

What a rant.

Listen, man, that's collusion.

And, like, you know, you can get an auction, Scott. Todd, this is not an auction. This is not a government deal, okay? This is not collusion.

Hey, Mark, I want to take something, though. This is pretty interesting to me because it's funny that Scott brought this up about, like, you know, the fact that this guy's own this. This land. And Scott, is it a county that's popular with other land investors? Here's the deal. I was looking the other day in LG Pass because I was. I was running some numbers, and I'm like, what is the number one county that land investors are going to? Because on land moto, it's like a large county, right? Like, look, I looked at it and like there's a, there's a. By far, there's like one county that, that we go to by and far. I think everybody that's doing anything with land investing probably knows what it is. That said, I went into LGPass, I'm like, hey, let me take some APN numbers at random and let me run some analytics behind it to see how many offer letters people are getting that are being generated from LGPass, which there's a lot of offer letters being generated from LGPass, right? So I took a number of individual APN numbers. I probably took about 10 of them and I randomly put them in to search to see how many offer letters they've gotten over the last two years. And do you know the maximum number that I saw was three. Three offer letters per APN number over a two year period. Now this is in the most populated or most land investor counties.

Friendly.

Friendly.

Let's just say it's like, it's like the most competitive and it's not even competitive.

The top was three offer letters over two years. And so it just goes to show you things. One, even though there's competition and we're all working in that same county, even though we're all there, guess what? We're still not pulling out all the gold. There's still lots of gold there. Two, it makes the point that I keep making. I make this in flight school, I make it in VIP rooms at boot camp. I keep saying the same thing. When more and more people are promoting properties in this one area. Well, when other people who don't know look at it like, holy cow, man, there's that area again. There's that area again. There's that area again. It's like the ultimate in like vacation marketing. When you see ad after ad after ad for like Hawaii and you see all the stars in Hawaii, where do you want to go on vacation? You want to go to Hawaii. So when you see, oh, here's another property in that area. Oh, here, all of a sudden it becomes the go to place that people want to buy land and a self fulfilling prophecy.

Yeah, yeah. So, Scott Bossman, of all the roundtable responses, which one do you relate to the most?

Scott. Todd.

Scott. Todd.

I mean I learned Mark doesn't have a heart. He's Talking to an 80 year old guy who just had, he just had a Seventeen hundred dollar, eighty year old.

Guy made a deal with me.

Who.

Doesn'T have the heart.

I just spent an hour with him, you know. An hour, Fred, I'm never getting this hour back. You know what? It's like, you're 80.

I didn't talk him down, to be fair. To be fair, I was gonna go with 2000 and I talked him down to 1750. And I, I mean, like I said.

I called the other investor too.

I think what Mark would have done is he would have been like, listen, man, you're 80. You're knocking on heaven's door and time to like make this up. I'm young guy. I have many, many years to go at peace. So make the right decision.

Right?

Right.

If this was your son and your son was buying a piece of land and someone did this to your child, what would you say? You say, boy, that seller really has no integrity. Let him go. But even more, you know what? I wouldn't mess with him because, Scott, you're right. It would sound a little callous and cruel to like start doing this to an 80 year old man. But I would go to the other investor and be like, next deal is yours. And oh, by the way, your offer's way too high. That's what I would do. It's community.

Yeah, I think that's great.

We all were, we all, we all support each other, right, Scott?

Ty, I'm gonna make that investor take me out to dinner as well. Why?

Because you saved, you saved them, right?

Yeah. I mean, Eric, how long has it been since you stole that Colorado deal for me? I still haven't forgotten.

Right, you haven't forgotten. And it's been well over a year.

It's been well over a year. And I'll still get deal flow from that. I don't have to deal with the seller. I can just go straight to Eric. He'll be like, you know, Eric wholesale in the park. He'll wholesale to me so we all can work together. Even if somebody, you know, takes a deal that I feel is rightfully mine. But it's not because Eric took it. Now it's his. I'm just kidding. He didn't really take it from me. That's different. It's not like Eric came in with like this crazy high offer. He just had more patience for the seller than I did. It's fair.

Indeed.

I just like to haze him. Well, we're now at that point in the podcast where we get to put the terrorist hunter on the spot and ask her for the 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. I thought this roundtable was very lively. That was great. But alas, one last tip and I'm going to stop streaming on Facebook. So the Facebook people can actually go and listen to the podcast, download it, and hear their tip of the week.

So I've been reviewing all of my expenses. I feel like I got like 40 different accounts that I manage, right? So I found this website. It's called Whitepages.com it's just like Intellius, but instead of spending 1995amonth, it's 4.99amonth. So $15 less offers the same service, but for $4.99 you get 20 lookups for Intellius is 1995, you get unlimited. Okay? So it just depends upon how much you use it. If you use it. If you use Intellius only, you know, 20 times a month or less, then go over to white pages and send yourself the money. It also does the phone reverse lookup too. In addition to looking up the person's name, it has their email address, phone number, past addresses, all the same stuff. Relatives.

That's a great newbie tip too, because if they're not doing that, the mailing volume, that really can save them, you know, a little bit of money. 15 bucks, you know, for bear land. Erin, that's like a nice dinner out in Amish country. Well, two of them or two of them really. You know, get some homemade cheese. It's great.

If you go to a restaurant, Amish country, do you have to bring your own meat?

No, they supply it.

You have to bring your own wine.

You have to build a fire and cook it yourself.

Yeah, that's. That's fair. I knew that was provide your own.

Okay, wait, wait. Okay, so our marching band went to Semi state this last weekend, and we're following one of the buses. And the bus stops on a four lane highway just in the middle of nowhere. No railroad tracks. We're trying to see around this thing. This bus driver stops. So this horse and buggy could cross the four lane. I mean, just stops all the traffic. It's like really like there's nobody behind us. Horse and buggy.

Come on.

I got a picture. I'll send it to Scott Todd.

I'm making a prediction, though. I think that there's going to be like this huge tech backlash and we're going to see all these people instead of going to big cities for vacations and you know, they're going to completely unplug in Amish country. No cell towers. Right. Could be a thing. I don't know.

A lot of people do that here in D.C. places where there's completely disconnect.

Yeah, I. I think what you're describing, Mark, is the Walking Dead.

The show?

Yeah, the show. The zombies are coming. And when we lose all the cells and everything.

Any dystopic science fiction.

I was reading this Yuval Noah Harari book, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, and you just had this beautifully written line, like, if you think that you're in control of your technology, you're not. He's like, technology is in control of you. He's like they've hacked your mind, basically. And if you go out in the world, you see everybody like this. You know, it's like we can't control it. It's just. They've hacked our mind. Brilliant.

When we moved back From Japan in 2008, it was like culture shock. And we thought it was so bizarre. Everyone was walking around talking to themselves. Right. They had things in their ears. But it just looked really weird sitting in the airports. People were just sitting in chairs talking to themselves. It was very strange looking. And we noticed that our family members would get up the married couples, and they would check their phones before they even said so. Hey, how are you doing this morning? It was very strange, but it was very US centric. It wasn't so much like that on the little remote island that we lived on. It's interesting.

Interesting. Very interesting. Well, Eric, I'm gonna give you the final word, and now's your chance to, you know, kind of take a shot across the bow at Mimi's tip of the week, since we're all hazing you.

Absolutely not. Her tip of the week was perfect. And I'm sure she'll do a great job at the tips of the week from now on.

Well, look how I lob that for you. That was just perfect for you.

Thanks, I appreciate that.

All right, Mimi's got to work it out for her for next week until.

Someone else falls into the rabbit hole. Oh, I got.

You can still swap back and forth with Zaino, though. Don't forget about him.

I'll check his schedule.

And Jeannie's taking the month off. She'll be back in December. So the Go Getter Genie, Morum will be back. So are we good?

We're good, Mark.

We're good.

Yep.

I want to thank all the listeners and just remind them the only way that we're going to convince Mimi to continue to do the tip of the week is if you do three little favors for us. All you do subscribe, rate and review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of that review. To support thelandgeek.com we're going to send you for free the $97 passive income launch kit. And if you have questions, today's flights. Today's podcast is sponsored by flight school. And would it be great to get on the phone with the nightcap meister himself and maybe even convince him to say dude buddy to you? So all you need to do is go to thelandgeek.com training schedule, a call with Scott the nightcap meister bossman or Mike the Zen Master Zano and learn more about the upcoming flight school. Scott, what is next? Flight school.

You, Scott, we have a Saturday one starting November 10th. Like, that's our first Saturday one. So Saturday morning. What better way to start a Saturday morning than with me hanging out?

Really? There really isn't one.

And then we've done that after Thanksgiving.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, yeah. So, Scott Bossman, are there still spots for that Saturday class?

There are still spots available for the Saturday class, yes.

All right, so it's a great way to start 2019, get into the Saturday morning flight school again. I actually did IBM Watson and I plugged in what is the best way to spend Saturday morning, and they said, learning how to have total freedom via passive income in land geek flight school with Scott Todd, who has done over 700 deals the last three years. There's no one better to teach you and take you up that land investing mountain. So it's math.

I concur.

Might as well do it. All right, well, I want to thank everybody again and we'll see everyone next week. Thanks, everybody.

Let freedom ring.

Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. You know what, Scott? I'll tell you this. This whole thing, guys got me so riled up, I even forgot to let freedom ring. All right, ready? 1, 2, 3. Let freedom ring.

Free.

I'm calling. I'm calling Fred. As soon as we stop recording here.

I'll give you his number.

Would it make a difference if he was 70?

You know, I don't know. I would say no. It wouldn't make a difference because that would be ageism.

It is ageism, right? I think. No, I think it's your ageism.

Yeah, right, right.

Holding him to this moral standing. Eric Peterson, are you with me on this? Oh, it's because he's 80. He gets to just do whatever he wants now he can break a dream, he can work red lights. There's a social contract here all day long.

You know, he could not be true to his word because he's 80.

I don't think so. What kind of guy is he?

I mean, Scott Todd lives. Lives in an area where, you know, he's like, everybody's 80, so.

No, but they're Florida men.

When you were in Fort Myers.

When I was in Fort Myers, yes. I think I was the youngest guy around. But, well, Eric for a while. So, you know, Eric was kind of like the younger guy.

Yeah, I feel like. I feel like Eric is, like, reversing. He's like Benjamin Button syndrome every time I see him younger. What kind of stress free existence is going on in Tennessee?

We might need to go find out more.

Seriously.

Nashville boot camp.

I'm all for it. East Coast.

I don't know.

We love you, but we know you guys want to spend more time on the best coast, so we'll keep having.

Boot camps closer to us.

Hey, man, listen. We might have to have a battle of boot camps, like east coast versus West Coast. Like one weekend, we have an east coast one and a West coast one to see which one people get more.

The last time two of the most famous rappers did this, someone ended up dead.

Just saying, like, only be like, you two and, you know, Bossman, Zano, Eric, Mimi, and myself. I mean, like, we're gonna outnumber the east coast side.

It'll just be Tate and Mark.

That's their problem, not ours. Yeah, gonna come to the East Coast.

I think this could cause some serious contention and strife, and I think we should end the podcast now, Mark.

I agree.

Stop recording.

Hey, what about the Great Lakes?

Let's go to lunch, everybody.

Mackinac island or something in the summer.

It's really good. It's really getting out of control here. This is becoming a Tupac biggie problem.

It's a turf war at this point, Mark.

It is becoming a turf war.

My bat's bigger than yours.

All right, let's take this off. Thanks, everybody.