Reasons To Invest In Counties That Are More Saturated

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

I'm doing well, Mark, thanks.

We got the Zen master, Breathe in the mailing, Breathe out, the marketing, Mike Zano. Mike, how are you?

Doing great.

Good to see you. We got the technician, Eric Peterson. Eric, things good?

Good.

Fresh out of boot camp and doing well.

Yeah. And of course, I love it when you call me Big Papa Tate Litchfield. Tate, how are you?

I'm finally recovered. As Eric said, man, boot camp wore me out.

Yeah, it was a lot of energy. It's weird, you know, there's actually studies, like doing it over zoom is. Is actually, you know, does drain you more than in. In person, for sure.

Absolutely.

And for those of you that want to look over Tate shoulder, go to the landgeek.com forward/lovers. Last but not least, the brain, the professor, your flight school sherpa, Scott Todd. Scott Todd.netlandmoto.com Learn anything about anything. Investerninjas.com Scott Todd, how are you?

Mark?

I'm great.

How are you?

I'm great. I'm great. Scott Bossman, what's our topic for today?

All right, so I've been perusing the Facebook group lately and a couple comments in there recently that I thought we could talk about here on the roundtable. So this is going to lead into a good discussion, I think. Here's a question. Does anyone here in this really big Facebook group buy outside of Castilla, Cochise, or Mojave County? So I think what the person is getting at is these are counties, right, Where a lot of people do deals. I think everybody on this call is doing deals in these counties or two out of three of the counties for sure, or has done. And there's a lot of activity in these counties in the group. So there were some varied responses to this. We're supposed to go where other land investors are. Some people think that we're just flipping land to each other in the group and somebody's going to get stuck with the land at some point. So that's what we want to talk about today.

A land Ponzi scheme. Right, A land Ponzi scheme. Mike Zano, what do you. What are your thoughts?

Ah, wow. So, yes, I've worked in all of those subdivisions. But yes, I work in counties. I'm sorry.

And.

But yes, I work in A number of other counties as well, or, you know, so is it something inherently bad that we all go there? No, I think there's deals there, right? There's lots of deals happening. People are selling properties retail. There is a lot of wholesale there. But that's because the people who are buying those wholesale or the people that I sell to, I've done a lot of wholesale, say in Costilla, they buy from me and they're doubling their money selling cash or they're making 3, 400%, they're making money, they're not buying from me and then wholesaling to somebody else. So I don't really. I don't know. I mean, I kind of get the first part of the question. Like, there's a lot of people there, right? But that's okay. There's a lot of land there. In fact, there's a lot more land probably in Costilla than lots of other areas. So there's just a huge, huge market there. Right. It's just. So as far as that goes now, is someone going to be stuck with it at the end? I don't think so. I think that what could happen is that somebody could get a piece of property and not really invest a lot of time in marketing and feel sort of deflated that they're not making a sale and geez, this doesn't work. And then they look and they try to justify why it's not working. Well, there's a lot of people here, there's competition and all this. And they start to, you know, the opposite of what we say, when we say grit is sort of the opposite of that. So, yeah, that's my initial thoughts. You gotta, you know, be like sending out hundred offer letters and then being like, mark, I can't get any deals.

What'd you do?

I sent out a hundred offers. You'd be like, okay, a week. No, I mean 100. 100. And you'd be like, okay, you need to send out more. So I think it points to a lot of things. One, it's a big market, which is no problem. That means there's a lot of activity there. Two, you just got to have the tenacity and the wherewithal to constantly post ads, just like you constantly mail and. But it almost sounds like giving wholesale a bad name. Wholesale is a great thing if it's done right. You know, people buy, they sell at retail, they make a nice fat return. The wholesaler makes good money. So that's a nice mechanism in place there. So I don't think ponzi scheme would be anything close to related to that. You know, I've wholesaled literally hundreds of properties this year, and everybody who's buying from me is making money, Mark. And a lot of them are seasoned investors. It just happens to be one way to acquire property.

Well, yeah, I couldn't agree with that logic more, but I do want to challenge Scott Bossman. Dude, buddy, the Nightcap og, what are your thoughts about this is ours is, you know, the. I don't even know how many land investors are. There are, but there's not that many. Is everybody in these three counties and they're just selling to each other.

So I think there are a lot of land investors in these counties. What I also know, though, is that when you're new to this business, you might have a maybe a little bit more of a scarcity mindset than you need to have. I had it five years ago. I was afraid everybody's gonna buy my land, and I didn't want to wear my land geek T shirt anymore. But the longer you're in this business, the more you go through the mechanics of mailing, mailing, mailing, you're going to pick up deals even in these counties. I've bought more land in one of these counties this year, I think, than I have in the last, in any year in the last five years. And we've sold probably just more as well. And we're selling it retail. I just picked up a property last week. We were talking about this on Nightcap last week. I mailed this guy five times in the last year and a half, and my offer price has gone up a couple hundred dollars over that time. He finally sold to me today. I asked him, how many offers have you got for this property? Gotten for this property? I get one every now and then, he says. So he's not getting these offers very often, but I hit him enough, and he remembered me, that he eventually decided to sell to me. So deals are being done, the market is vast, and we're selling retail, and we're selling on terms. People want this land, they want to invest in land.

No, you know, it's. It's true. It's. It's so true. It's. What does the market want? But I wanted to know what the big papa thinks. Tate Litchfield.

You know, I think it's silly, if I'm being honest. I hope that. I hope that I'm the guy who gets stuck with everything. Like, that would be best case scenario for me. Because if I get stuck with everything, then I own Everything I can control the price. And you know what's going to happen. The supply is going to go down directly and the price will go up quite a lot in that area if it were left up to me. So that doesn't sound like a bad thing. I think you have to look at why people work these areas. I mean, where else in the country can you buy 5 acres of land for that price? There's very few locations, right. From a sales perspective in. It's easy to market, it's easy to sell, it's beautiful. I mean, there's a reason why these areas are popular. And I think a lot of people pull the eject button too quickly on it. They don't give it time. They think, oh, it's been three months, didn't fly off the shelf. Well, here's why. How many ads have you posted? Right. Do you have a team set up? No, it's just been you. And you're only doing it on the weekends when you feel like it. No wonder you haven't sold, right? You haven't committed to this. I think, and Mike was saying it earlier, before we started recording, it's a matter of grit, right? You gotta endure it, you gotta suffer to the joy, because it's coming, the joy is on its way, but you gotta do the work upfront. So do I think that it's a bad thing? Listen, I like these counties. I work in them. I've worked in other counties. I buy a lot of wholesale. I buy a lot of direct mailers out from direct mailers. I mean, the business model works, plain and simple.

Yeah, the business model works. I've been doing this for 20 years. I've been working those counties for 20 years. At some point you think I get tired of making money. I don't. Never gets boring for me. And the more people in those counties, the more they're just validating the market for me plenty. There's enough. But, you know, maybe Eric Peterson is going to agree and be like, yeah, too many people, you know, everybody should be doing ATM investing. Eric, what do you think?

Yeah, I think that in all likelihood, you know, the, the comments that we're looking at came from someone that's, that's either kind of investigating the land investing model or is very new in the process. And I think from that perspective, it's really pretty easy to start to feel like if everybody's in this place, sooner or later it's all going to fall apart. And if I'm in the middle of that, I'm going to Be stuck with everything. But I mean, I think it's really important to understand the size of the market. So one of these counties that were referred to is very popular in our community and other land investors in General. There are 66,753 properties available in this county. 66,000, that's one county. It's 1229 square miles. There's 32,850 different property owners. Okay, that's some top level statistics on one of those counties. I can tell you that every one of us on this call has done deals probably within the last three to four months without question in this county. We buy there, we sell there. And the reason we do is because there's a market, people want that land. You know, again, as someone that's new in this, this business, I could, I could see how you might look at it and say, well, yeah, all the properties the same. It looks like a barren desert. Who's going to want to pay five grand or ten grand or whatever that price is for this property? I understand it, but you really need to invest the time and effort in this business to understand how it all works and how it comes together. You know, as many of us have already mentioned, it's. As an, as someone new in this market, if you just go out and you place a few ads like it's, it's very easy to start to feel like I'm never going to sell this property. But it, it takes effort, okay? It doesn't, money doesn't grow on trees. Can't just go out in the backyard and pick it.

Right?

I mean, you have to work. So in this case, the work is getting the ads out, getting those leads and following up with them. Okay. If you do that work and you do it over time, you will see a result. And it doesn't matter if you're in this, what people are calling a saturated county or a different county. I would actually advocate that you go to the saturated county because there's so much activity. You can ride the wave of that as opposed to going somewhere where other investors aren't. And now you're a lone warrior out there trying to sell a property. And it could take even longer in that scenario.

Yeah, no, it's so true. Again, it's all about the market. Scott, Todd, give you the final word on this. You're on mute.

There are a lot of great, great points here, right? Like a lot, a lot has been said. And go back and listen to each one of those pieces because they're huge. I think that the reality is, is that, do you know who the best fishermen are? 1, it's the fishermen who know where the fish are. But two, if you don't know where the fish are, you can use your eyes and figure out where the fish are by finding out where the other fishermen are. So if you're starting out and you want to know, like, where do I even start? Find out where the fishermen are. Who's fishing in this business? Me, you, all these land investors, if they're going to these counties, as Ben said, there's a reason.

Why.

Why do you go fishing in a certain spot? Because that's where the fish are. That's why. And then you just keep going, keep going. You keep going. Now you want to take a little bit of time and go learn, like, how to find your own spot. No problem. Go do that. But it's going to take time. There's a reason why charter fishing captains get paid big dollars to go out and find these spots. But you know what? They don't just load up their boat filled with paying customers and go out to these spots and go, I think this might be a good spot. No, you see, they go out there on their own time. They mess around, they sample, they research. They do all this stuff on behind the Scenes. But then when it comes time to, like, show the results, like, take your customers out there, you're going to the. To the proven places, because no one wants to go on a charter boat, come at home at the end of the day and go, didn't catch anything. And no one on the boat did. It was a terrible day. What a miserable day for that. So think like a fisherman.

No, it's true. And you know, the person that wrote that question, you know, it's, it's. It does seem a little counterintuitive. But that is sometimes what you look at a market, you know, let's just pick on. On Tate, okay? He lives in Las Vegas. And let's assume that Tate is going to look for a new location to build his casino. He could build on Las Vegas Boulevard. He has that choice. Or he can build on a rural part of a. Of or a suburban part. Let's just say Henderson in Nevada. Henderson is. There's no competition. There's no casinos. Not a one Las Vegas Boulevard. You're competing with Venetian and Bellagio and Aria. And we can go on and on. And they're just lined up all next to each other. There's tons of them. Where do you build, Eric Peterson? Where do you go?

You go where the Others are. That's where the traffic is.

That's where the traffic is. Right. Tate, where would you build? Wait, you're on mute.

Building downtown, Right? I'm building on the Strip. It makes sense.

You're building on the Strip, Right, Right. Mike Zainab, where are you gonna build?

Yeah, just like when you go and see McDonald's, and there's Wendy's. Wendy's across the street, and then Burger King right next to that.

I mean, that's where the traffic is. But the end of the day, people like burgers and fries. People like to gamble. People like to buy land. Go to where the people are. Don't go to where they're not buying. Go to where they're buying. It's that simple. You see it everywhere in business, you see it everywhere. McDonald's continues to do these crazy traffic counts. And when they do these crazy traffic counts, they find the best corner to build a McDonald's. And then who comes in right after Wendy's? In and out, Burger King, Jack in the Box. They don't say, oh, better not go there. There's a McDonald's. No, there's enough for everybody. Because people like burgers and fries. I don't know. Scott Bossman, you have another example.

No, I love the location, location, location example. Right. My first job, I was a furniture mover. The owner of the furniture store said, scott, if you remember one thing about a business, it's location, location, location. That's kind of. Kind of analogous to this. Right? Like, you want to go where other people are, where there's a market. So I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, it's. It'd be like, you know, the whole concept of a big mall. Like, why would anybody have a store in a mall and pay these ridiculously high rental prices? Oh, I know why. Because that's where all the people are. That's why. That's why they're doing it. So, Mike Zaina, what do you got?

I just wanted to key in on what Eric said. One thing Eric said really resonated with me is the fact that not only are they placing ads, but did you hear how he said, following up with the leads and making sure, you know, all this? There's all these other things that have to go besides just setting an ad.

Right.

It'd just be like if someone responded to an intake that, you know, an offer, the site of their property, you never followed up with them or you didn't. They didn't answer the phone the first time, and you're like, I Guess they don't want to sell me their property.

Right.

I mean, this is a process, and that's why we do all workflows, and that's why we automate and delegate. I mean, that was really important what he said there, and I just wanted to highlight that.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I thought this was a really good topic. Scott Bossman, I'll give you the last word.

I think it comes down to this. The people who are making headway in this business are the ones who are casting their rod to go back to Scott Todd's analogy. And they're cast and they cast and they cast and they don't give up. So you need to do it, you know, make it a habit. The actions, connect the dots later. And you got to get off your. You just. You just gotta go through the motions. Gotta go through the actions.

Yeah, exactly. If I were gonna, you know, move cities, I wouldn't want to move to some, you know, area that there's no people. I'd want to go to Tampa Bay and have Burns Steakhouse in the Columbia every night, because it's there. He didn't even crack a smile. He's probably not even listening.

I'm going to Burns right now.

So we are now at that point in the podcast where we're going to ask Tate for the tip of the week on a website, a resource, a book, something actionable for the art of passive income listeners to improve their businesses, improve their lives. But before he gives that tip, I have to mention our sponsor, Flight School. Learn how the next 16 weeks can literally change your life. Go up the mountain of land, investing quickly, safely, efficiently with your land geek sherpa, Scott Todd. He's done it thousands of times. Learn more. Go to landgeek.com training and ask, what do you mean I'm gonna make back my tuition 180 days or less, guaranteed. I just have to do the business. That's it. Get on a call with the zen master, Mike zano or Nightcap OG Scott Bossman. Thelandgeek.com training I want to fly. I'm gonna thank Flight School for being our roundtable sponsor. Okay, Tate, what is the tip of the week?

All right, so this is a tool I recently used actually to help a customer who is buying raw land from us. If you guys check the link, it's not a typical tool. This tool is the Oregon Water Resources Department well report mapping tool. So if you go to it and you're selling land in this area and you get the question that we often do talk to me about water. Talk to me about depths. This one. This tool will allow you to plug in your property. You can identify it, and it'll give you a rough estimate of how deep you're going to have to drill. It's not going to be a tool that everyone is going to use, but I used it Thursday last week, and it's pretty cool. I like maps. I like GIS systems. This is kind of similar to that, but it's got the water information, water depth on it, which will save you a call to the county, and they're not going to give you accurate information anyway. So if you're in Oregon, this tip's for you.

If you.

If you're working in the state of Oregon, you're going to love it. Check it out. Oregon Water Resources Department well mapping tool. So I don't know.

That's what I got.

I'm waiting for Scott Todd to come at me, but he knows this is good. This is a good resource.

Eric Peterson's got a skeptical look on his face.

No, I was looking around trying to locate some stuff on the map.

Oh, okay. Scott Todd, you're gonna let him go with that tip.

What does the red mean? Date on the map.

So the, the red is. Let me see. I can't remember. The blue dots are obviously the wells. I think the red is forest. National forest, if I'm not mistaken.

Man.

All right.

All right, Tate.

Way to go, Tate. Nice tip.

Not bad.

Not bad. It's kind of cool. I mean, if nothing else, it kind of can give you an idea of where the water is. And contrary to what my opinion was, there's not a ton of water in the state of Oregon. Right. Like in certain parts, you come off the coast there and it's a high desert. So to think that it's going to be the rainy coast, it's not necessarily true. So this was a good opportunity to kind of pay attention to the geography and the mountains and the coast and the breeze and where the rainfall actually hits. So very interesting to me.

Very cool. Very cool. All right, well, I want to thank the listeners and remind them the only way Tate's gonna continue giving these incredible tips of the week.

Tate's not going to continue to give you incredible tips of the week.

You do us three little favors. You got to subscribe, rate, review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of that review to supportlandgeek.com we're gonna send you for free the $97 wholetailing course, how to double your money, 30 days or less. All right, are we good? We ready to do this? 1, 2, 3. Let freedom. Not bad. You know what was interesting was at the end of boot camp, that was, like, the best one. What? Right. Ever. What was that all about?

Paul Flanagan said that it was. But do we have proof?

Paul Flanagan knows his stuff, man. He's a loyal listener.

I'm saying he doesn't. I'm just saying that we might need to go back to the replay and listen to it.

Yeah, that. That boot camp was for our second virtual one. I thought it went really, really well. Despite how tired all of us were. We were so much more tired this second one than the first one. Mike Zana. Why is that?

I'm trying to figure that out. I don't. I don't know. I know we put a lot of effort, a lot of our heart and soul into it, and maybe we're just getting older.

That extra. That extra two months.

What are you talking about, getting older?

I don't know.

I mean, you know, every morning, man, every morning I go, I go and I get my donut, and I'm walking out and I'm feeling like a kid with a donut. Like, I still feel as if I got this donut in my hand. Like, I was a kid, mom would buy me a donut. I'm like, I got this thing, you know?

You know what I bought. Speaking of feeling like a kid again, have you guys heard of this cereal called Magic Spoon?

No.

It's like a keto friendly protein.

Wow.

You know, there's no sugar, and it's like. It's like, kind of crunchy. It's cereal. It's like you feel like a kid again eating this sugary cereal, and yet it's not bad for you.

I don't think I'd want more than kind of crunchy, though. I want crunchy.

No, no, it's crunchy. It's really crunchy. It's. It's. But it's different.

I had fruity Pebbles for breakfast today, so, I mean, I'm not touching a magic spoon. I don't want to eat that. How many colors are that? How many colors is in that cereal? Probably all, like, bland. It's like everything is brown. I don't want to eat that.

All right, look, I'm telling you, it's sweet.

Send me a box. I'm not buying it. You send me a box. I'll test it. But I'm not wasting money on something like that.

Can you test it live on this show?

Sure.

Fine. I'll send you a box. Actually, I'll send you four boxes. I think they have got the variety pack. I've tried all of them. My favorite is blueberry.

Is that magic fork?

Is it even blue? Is it even blue? It better be blue. Okay.

Yeah.

So I don't know if it's gonna replace Captain Crunch in my life, but.

I mean, I was wondering if it was replaced the donut for Scott. Todd.

Why fix it if it's not broken?

Wasting away. Next time we see Scott, he's gonna look like, you know, Gandhi right after getting out of prison.

I want to take that compliment to Tate. Tate's the original donut eater.

Scott, that could be the lack of caffeine talking there. Look.

Yeah. Remember we did a podcast just today, Mark, and you were talking about how you shouldn't be, like, you know, going after Eric Peterson and eating ribs. It hasn't come out yet. This is many months from now. But you're talking about being kinder and gentler because maybe you could be offending our fans.

True. That's true.

Those are the, Those people that.

That was caffeinated, Mark.

Should I go back to caffeine? I don't feel that moody.

Oh, no, not at all.

I know. I feel like Eric, I, I. Eric, will you just do it with me? Will you just stop drinking coffee? No, let's just see how it goes. I feel like I need a brother in arms in this.

That would be like asking him to give up ribs. I mean, come on.

No more whiskey, no more ribs, no more coffee, water, and magic spoon all day long.

That would be an interesting question, though. What food or drink could you not live without?

So.

Like, if someone asked me that a week ago, I'd like my morning coffee. I wouldn't want to live without it. But is there like, Mike, is there any food or drink you could not live without?

I don't want to say not live without, but I'll say whiskey is a non negotiable.

Okay. What kind of whiskey? Just any whiskey?

Scotch. Scotch.

Scotch.

Scotch, yeah.

So you would. You would not want to live without Scotch?

I don't think there's a need to. I think it complements a good day. Just one little glass. I think it's, you know, everything in measure. I don't see. No, I'll give up scotch when. Scotch. No, I'm not saying that. Because I'll say he'll give up a donut just to make me give up scotch. I'm not gonna say that.

I retract.

What drink or food could you not.

Live without, you know, I like a Coke, so that's the one thing I'm hanging on to.

All right, Eric.

I don't know, man. It's coffee in the mornings and a bourbon at night, you know?

All right, so give up the coffee, keep the bourbon. Let's do this.

Bookends. Bookends.

That's ridiculous.

That'd probably be rough, Mark. I don't know.

It is rough, but that's why it's so fun. You think Peloton Power Zone training is easy?

Absolutely not.

Exactly.

But I don't have a problem sleeping.

So I don't have a problem sleeping either. I just want to see what life would be like without it.

It's just I don't psychologically great problems.

I just don't like being predicted something. I don't like that I have to have it. I wouldn't just want to have it. What's that?

Air.

Can't give that one up.

You know.

Mark.

I don't like Pepsi. I really do not like. I like. I like Coke products, not Pepsi products. Okay, I shouldn't say that because like a Dr. Pepper, I think is a Pepsi product. But if I had to choose between like Coke or let's say Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi, I just would not drink the Diet Pepsi.

It's not a friend.

I'm not a fan of it. And then we go to like a boot camp, for example, at a Marriott. Well, Marriott only has Diet Pepsis unless they're like really, really cool. And then they have like Diet Coke. Okay, so they only have Diet Pepsi. And it's like the worst taste to me. And like, so I drink like, I still drink it, but not as much. But when I get home, man, back to where I can get a Diet Coke or if I can escape and go get a Diet Coke. Oh, it's like found freedom.

I know.

Tate's the same way with Coke versus Pepsi too. So you know, Marriott. If you're listening and you want us to come back, forget the COVID thing. Just, you know, bring Coke.

All right, so wait, so Scott, what. What would you.

What?

Could you not give up food or drink with me?

Me? Okay, let's see. I'm not giving up Diet Coke. I'm not giving up my donuts. I'm not.

You gotta pick one of them.

One of them, one of them.

I'm not giving up. Cheez, Its Cheez, its Cheez. Its right. That's my. That's my end of day treat. Like I made it to the end of the day.

How's the cheese?

A treat.

I love them, man.

What?

What do you say? You love what you love. But how can I. Can't argue with that. Love is love, man.

Love is love. I think on that note, it's a good ending. Love is love. Thanks, guys.

We can't control what we love, all right?