Recession Stress Test: How Our Students' Land Businesses Performed in Down Markets

I once dined on steak with a candle's soft glow, but the bill left my savings despairingly low. Now wisdom has taught me, so simple, so grand, Eat baloney, buy land. Eat baloney, buy land. Trade the fork for the deed in your hand. Skip the filling, let the sandwiches stand. Your fortune will grow when you buy your own land. Fellas. Cheers!

Welcome to Land Geek Nightcap. Uh, hello everyone. So tonight we're talking the economy and we're talking land investing. Every time the economy gets shaky, people ask the same question about land: is land investing still going to work? So tonight we're going to separate the headlines from reality. We're going to talk about what we actually saw during recessions. Mark COVID, the three, all of us, other times where maybe there were high interest rates or uncertain markets. We're going to talk about what happened to seller response rate, buyer response rates. Did buyers disappear? Did no payments stop? And what lessons can we all use today to recession-proof our business? Should we get into it?

Let's do it. But can we first give Mike Zato— his birthday was yesterday. Happy belated birthday. Can they communicate Zen masters love?

Yes.

We won't say how old they are.

I figured John would be singing me with a guitar.

I mean, I left it at home, but next time I'll bring my panpipes for you.

It'll be good.

All right. Oh, what's that?

Go ahead.

Yeah, Don Thrasher's here. Can we just hug it out, Don? I think Rick Colcock's in the room.

Jeff Evenson, Valerie, Don. Uh, yeah, we got a lot of, uh, faithful viewers in the room, which is fun.

Viewers, yes.

It just—

yeah, it's kind of crazy that people come repeatedly to see us.

It's very exciting. Yeah, it's a compelling show, John. It's, uh, you know, our viewership is growing.

Yeah, I like that word, compelling. We're very compelling.

We need to deliver now. Now we need to deliver. They're here.

I know.

Now we need to deliver.

Every day I keep waiting for the Spotify email. We want to offer you the same deal that we offered Joe Rogan for Nightcap. And then I just want to respond, no, no, we'll never sell out.

I mean, I would probably sell out.

Uh, well, before we get started, why don't we—

Mike Zaino, what would you like?

Oh, I got bad, bad connection. Mike Zaino, tell everybody who we are and what, what we do and why we're here., this wonderful Tuesday.

Yeah, so we are, uh, the Land Geek guys. Um, we are led by the Land Geek himself, Mark J. Podolsky. Mark, maybe you should raise your hand in case they're not sure which one of us— there he is! That's Mark J. Podolsky, in case you're a first-time viewer.

The geekiest of the four of us.

So Mark initially went out and figured out how to buy these small parcels of land, sub-$5,000 purchase price, right? And we can take them and buy them 30, 25, 30 cents on a dollar, sell them on owner financing where we can create a note. Basically, someone's going to pay us for a length of time. Typically, we get all our money back in the first year and then years of payments. And if you do that over and over, you can replace your income. Like, that's the real deal. But you can start small. I mean, it starts with the cable bill, maybe it starts with the, the car payment, then the mortgage, and it keeps on growing. He taught us 3 jamuks. Is that how we say it? I'm not sorry, first JBooks. He taught us. All three of us no longer work traditional J-O-Bs, like we're retired, and our family is, uh, you know, really blessed by the, you know, what we've done. And Mark, we owe it to you. And we get to hear together on Tuesday nights and we have a couple drinks, we have a topic, we riff— rift or riff? Rift or riff?

I think it's riff. A rift is like when we're like— we're—

yeah, it's a problem. Yeah, we don't rift.

Those are the high drama episodes.

We riff, right? And we— and people come and listen, and, uh, you know, we try to bring some value and some content, but we're all in this together. You know, that's the great thing about this land investment community. There's no— nobody's trying to hide anything, no hidden agenda. We're all doing it, from Mark still doing deals all the way down to us. Like, we're all doing this. And so thank you for joining us. I think we have a really exciting topic. Is that what you said, Scott? The economy.

It's compelling. Hey, I didn't come up with the topic. I'm just, you know, all right.

Yeah, if you want us to change the topic, yeah, we could do that right now. Yeah, but Mark, here's the funny thing. This topic, I think maybe I could just end it right here because been doing it well over a decade and, you know, I'm not a big news guy. Sorry, I don't listen to— and I just keep buying and selling land. And so I— when people start saying the economy's bad, I don't know, I'm just still buying and selling land. Am I missing something, Mark?

No, you're not missing anything. So I've been doing this 26 years now, and I've gone through the good times, the bad times, and the Great Recession, and the land sold. And I was all like, Frontier's always been profitable. It's never had a not unprofitable year. Now, if you read Dirt Rich, I had some problems, right? But which we don't have to get into unless John wants to get into it.

You're only human, Mark. It's okay. Yeah, you're only human.

So, uh, but yeah, but as far as the business is concerned, we've got the best business in the sense that from a risk-reward ratio. Here's this property we're buying. We're making our money in the buy. We're buying at 25, 35 cents a dollar. The, the property is unique in the sense that it's raw land. Nothing to maintain, nothing to protect, can't be destroyed. Fires, floods, hurricanes, pandemics— we don't care. The land remains. Then we sell it and typically our yields are crazy and our ROIs are crazy. Let's just say a minimum yield of 72%, or doubling. And then we're the bank, so it's a one-time sale. We get recurring income every single month. No renters, no rehabs, no renovations, no rodents. And because we're paying cash, who cares what interest rates do? We don't care. So we have holding power, and if the economy does tank, which Let's say we know it's going to— the world's on sale, we go on a buying spree, no problem, no problem. And so you just use that profit-first methodology. Watch your cash. Don't do what I did and have Parkinson's Law of money— the more money you make, more money spent. That's a Mark issue. I don't want to get to my deep psychological issues, not feeling like enough and having to, having to buy my way out of it. But you can read Dirt Rich and hear all about it, read all about it. So, um, that's— yeah, that's my take. Great, great show, guys.

That's it, bro.

Great.

You know, cheers, cheers, cheers. That begs a follow-up question, Mark. I gotta ask you because, you know, I'm a firefighter here, not big on the numbers and finance, but, uh, we say 72 is a good— but how low can we go and still be like crushing other people's returns? Like, we say 70 all the time, but like, is 50 still great? Is 40 still great? Like, how low does that number go and it's still really great or good?

Well, I think, I, you know, it's a really interesting question. I, I have my own thoughts on it. I'd love to hear what DudeBuddy and John think. Like, how low would you guys go on your yield?

John, you're first.

Oh, I asked the question. I don't know.

I mean, I guess for me Part of it comes down to, um, how quickly I think I could sell something. So I'll overpay. Like, if there's a— let's say I have a product and I'm like, I'm running low on this one product type, right? Um, then I might pay a little bit extra, uh, to, to get another one of those properties in if I know that I'll be able to sell that really fast, right? But I don't know, I don't really have a good answer to how low of a yield I would do, but I know there's a threshold. It's more of a feeling than a science.

All these songs going through my head, you know, how low can you go? And then I can't fight this feeling any longer. It's like I'm getting all these music vibes from John Teach.

Maybe we should, uh, maybe we should explain to the listeners, uh, what yield means because we have a lot of folks tuning in for the first time. Maybe they're not, uh, aware of the, of the definition of yield.

I would like to say what I typically think it is and see if Mark agrees, because I, I, layman's terms, I always feel like— and this, this again, I'm putting myself out there, folks, because this— I'm not, you know, firefighter, so go easy on me. Uh, layman's terms, I'm always thinking like, how quick do I get my money back so I can redeploy it? Is that Do you feel like that speaks to it?

Yeah, I mean, it's the annualized return on whatever cash you actually have in the deal. So if you get your capital back on the down payment and they keep paying you monthly, your yield is infinite. So that's like the ultimate leverage. Um, the percentage of cash and investment spits back at you annually relative to what you paid for it. If you put, let's say, you know, $10K and it pays you $1K a year, that's a 10% yield.

Ah, okay, okay, okay. Yeah, so there is a way to get an infinite return in our business, sort of, kind of, isn't there? Isn't this what the land arbitrage is all about?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's just the— what is it— the, the percentage of cash you get back annually relative to what you put in.

Well, that's why land arbitrage is great, because you might pay $100 and bring in $150, $160, $180, $200. You might make one payment, you might make 2, but still that— but then you're going to bring in all that cash flow. So I can see why, uh, land becomes so attractive.

Yeah, so yeah, the yields get kind of silly, but I think— well, Scott, I want to hear Scott's opinion before I give mine.

Well, I think, um, if you're thinking of yield like an annualized return on your money, right? I mean, what do people make in the stock market if they invest money in the stock market, they make an annualized return on their money of what, 15% on a good year?

A really good year.

Really good year. Yeah.

Uh, and they're taking a lot of risk at 15%, right?

Right. So I mean, uh, would I be happy with a 50% yield? Yeah. And, and, you know, like, we buy— I, I buy land wholesale, uh, a lot, uh, because maybe I need inventory in a certain area. And when I buy land wholesale, I'm typically buying it at like 50 cents on the dollar, 50% of market value. Now, when I turn around and owner finance that deal, my numbers are not going to be as good as if I had purchased the property at 25 cents on the dollar through my mailings or some other means. But, um, but if I can move it quickly, cause there's some value in that too, right? Like, uh, if we move it quickly, we don't necessarily lose money on the parcel.

Right?

So, so that's the other thing. Uh, so if I can buy a property wholesale, sell it quickly on owner financing at 50% yield, I mean, who isn't— who wouldn't be happy with making 50% on their money? That's kind of how I look at it, I guess. I don't think I've ever sold one for less than 50%, and maybe that's where my land snobbishness comes in.

You a land snob?

Yield snob?

I don't know.

Yeah, I mean I think, I think the way you think about it is really great. I mean, look, the bottom line is nobody's— nobody ever went out of business making a profit. And that— and we're going to make a profit. Like, it's, it's crazy to say I've never lost money on a land deal. It's nuts. Like, it's almost irresponsible to say. Have you guys ever lost money on a land deal in 10 years, all this time?

No, I mean, I've had some profit that I wasn't excitingly proud about. I've been in a land snob, but, um, but some profit's better than no profit.

Yeah, I mean, so, so that's what I, I kind of think about when I think of yield. It's just, should I buy this property or should I buy that property? And then I know, okay, I get a higher yield on that one, I'm gonna buy more of those. And then I'll use the Boston method and the Burnett method. Well, how fast can I sell it? Because that increases my yield. How big a down payment can I get that increases my yield? So I'm just using it like, like comparison. I'm not just looking at— I'm using it sort of this comparative deal gauge of where do I want to buy. And now I know why I want to buy this, because I'm gonna get a higher yield.

Yeah. And Mark, that's—

we're always going to make money.

That's why I love the $1,000 land parcels a lot of times, right? Like even even 11 years into this, people think, Scott, you're still buying land for $1,000? Yeah. Because like, you can sell them quick for $99 down, $99 a month, or sometimes you get $500 on the down payment, and your yield is just crazy. So we buy more of them. It's, it's high volume at great numbers, which creates the river of nickels we always talk about, right? So yeah.

They know that reminds me of— do you guys ever go— I don't know, we up here, we— yeah, I took you to Salisbury Beach, Scott, when you're up here. We got the t-shirt, you know. So they have these game machines, you ever see this in the video machines? And they have this machine and it's like all quarters and it looks like it pushes out and it looks like they're gonna push them all the way out and they're gonna land, but it never happens. But you put money in and so that's right, it's a river of nickels. Like I get this machine, this pushes the money out, pushes.

It's like I'm a kid again at the arcade and I won. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, that was like, if you could turn 30%, you're still profiting, be in the market and make— I mean, the best investor in history, I think, is Warren Buffett. Now, he might not be the— he might not have the highest returns, but let's just say he averaged 22% a year return in the stock market, and he's Warren Buffett, compounded over all that time. Like, the four of us, like, we're not— we're like, we're passing on a deal at 22%. Right, so we're probably the best investors of all time.

I think we should have—

we're just not doing it in the stock market.

But Mark, you got 40 years to go, man.

Yeah, I'm just compounding it for you. Yeah, yeah, how long can I live? Yeah, that's it.

Yeah, I love it.

How about some of these people that are starting like in their teens? The teenagers starting this business.

Oh yeah, that's crazy.

I don't even want to talk to them, right? It's crazy. But like, I think Warren Buffett starts trading stocks like 8, so he started compounding at 8 years old. Mm-hmm. And we know what he heard of him until like 60. So yeah, it's crazy.

Well, see, now this is kind of an exciting topic, Zano. You were, you were a little bit, uh, down in the dumps when we first started out. A little negative Nelly about it.

No, no, I wouldn't be negative. I just wasn't overly excited by it. But you know that we're riffing and not rifting, as I saw in the chat. Thank you, everybody. Um, by the way, I like Matt Nunn. Vote on who has the best background. Yeah, I had to vote.

Look at the— look at the wicker.

The wicker is pretty good.

The wicker is not exciting, but John's pretty presumptuous with his office though.

Yeah, you also can't see it, but my feet are very kicked up on this desk.

So yeah, I feel like if we went in John's office, like, his chair would be like this high and we'd be sitting like really low. Like, you know, we actually, uh, we installed some bunk desks.

So, uh, yeah, that's great.

Yeah, just, just a very intimidating vibe.

Uh, yeah, and I'm in bed with you, Yahoo's drinking beer. It's just, uh, it's where my life is tonight. I'm traveling, so for those interested in my background, I'm visiting my parents, uh, at their lake cabin, and, uh, this is the only spot I have to chat. My son always FaceTimes me during nightcap. I could turn— decline. Uh, Ben.

Ben. Hi, Ben.

Well, I don't know, but now Maybe after the nightcap I'll play the piano.

There you go. I gotta figure out how to do that. That's my issue. Maybe we should talk about quick, uh, because people may be wondering about, you know, this, the state of the, the market. But, you know, maybe we should just talk briefly about our land businesses and, and how they're going this year, uh, in particular. Um, maybe we should do a little A little roundup on that.

A little whimsy-doozy.

Yeah, like for instance, so I'll tell you what I'm seeing.

You must have something good to share. I think that's why you're bringing this up. So go ahead, you go first.

No, not at all. No, I, I would just say, like, all I, all I would say, Mike, is that, um, we're kind of on a buying spree, like Mark mentioned.

Yeah, right. Oh yeah, I just closed on 75 properties, you know. So yeah, are you gonna flip them? No, of course I'm gonna— I'm not gonna— I'm not gonna— resisting the urge to wholesale them. So please don't feed into me, don't enable me. You're trying to enable me on a live podcast. I'm trying not to wholesale them.

Why? What's the logic?

The passive income that I, you know, I wholesale for so many years in the beginning, and now it's, you know So now I enjoy the passive income, but I would make a great return if I wholesale them for sure. But I'll make a better return, clearly. I mean, the numbers are crazy, you know.

So, oh, that's exciting. Yeah, I think that just that story alone kind of just goes to show how much deal flow is out there, because we're always like, like, think about all the land geeks sending out mail, and Mike's still getting big deals.

And this is in an area where there's a lot of land investors. So that's really kind of cool, right? We're like, oh, we're gonna saturate this. Well then, how did I just from one person buy 75 properties, right?

Because you showed up. You showed up consistently.

Well, I think that part of that too, like, one of the reasons that there's always deal flow is because we are like, we're predominantly buying from people who purchased from land investors years and years ago. And for one reason or another, it didn't work out. And so there's predictable churn that happens and will continue to happen, right? Because we're dealing with these, these areas that churn out at predictable rates.

So yeah, yeah, I mean, I think there's an argument to be made that people can like just rent these from us for like, because they use them with their kids and the kids grow up, give them back to us, we'll sell them again. We're good.

Well, uh, for those, for those in the chat, put in the chat, uh, how's deal flow right now? We got a lot of active land investors in the chat, love to hear from you. But, uh, yeah, deal flow for us is, it's banging right now.

Yeah, yeah. So, but I think, you know, Mark, maybe years ago I would have hesitated to buy like that, man, you know what I mean? But the more you get in the business, more you realize they all sell, and you recognize the value of a deal. You just make quick decisions and you know that it's a good decision, you know, because you know they're going to sell.

No, 100%.

John owns the coffee shop, Don. That, that's the big thing here. Like, nobody knows it, but that is John's coffee shop and he owns it. How's your deal flow? Let's see, anybody coming in there?

Mike, here's a question. How'd you acquire, uh, those properties?

Yes, a mailer.

Yes, there you go. Mark Bryan. Mark Bryan, awesome! Got 4 properties from one guy at 25 cents on the dollar.

My man Mark, glad to see you here.

Awesome. Anybody else? What's the deal flow? I feel like I'm breaking up a little bit over here.

Like, we gotta spice up. I feel the energy dropping. What are we gonna do here? We gotta bring this up. We gotta— should we play some music?

I, I feel badly because I had a big dinner. Oh, you ate before?

You usually eat after that.

I know, I was starving and I made some bad choices.

What'd you eat? Let's hear it.

Bad choices. Tacos. Taco Poppy. We tried a new place, Taco Poppy.

What makes it a— what's the difference between tacos and Taco Poppy?

Well, Taco—

just imagine like a taco flavor Poppy.

Yeah, it's like we—

it was—

have you guys ever had quesadilla? Quesadilla?

Yes.

Yeah, so picture a lot of cheese, a lot of like stewed meat, and a lot of tortilla And then I'm like, oh, you know what, why don't I hurt myself some more? How about a chicken taco and a shrimp taco? And they were delicious.

Did you have a churro dessert?

Fried beans?

Churro dessert?

No, no, I didn't have time for the dessert. We had to get, get back.

I like Yujimutsu. My favorite thing is, and when we used to have the boot camps in Vegas, a sushi burrito.

Oh, oh yeah.

I mean, come on, if you're a foodie, sushi burrito. That is so good.

So good. Yeah, so yeah, I need a nap after that. I apologize. No, someone's gonna have to bring the energy up.

Let's play that song again. Let's play our intro again. Like, and who thinks this is a great idea? Because I think this is a fantastic idea. We come on, we talk for like 4 minutes, 3 minutes, and then we do the intro. I think that would be really cool. Anybody agree? You know, you see people, they do a thing, they talk, and that's what we'll be talking about today in the nightcap, and then boom, it kicks in. I think that'd be bad.

Yeah, it's like, it's like any dramatic show on television. They always have the, you know, drop into the scene for a few minutes and then you hit the theme music. Yes, yes, I like it, I like it. Uh, well, for those watching too, if you guys have questions, please, please post them.

Yeah, this would be a great time. You guys caught us at the perfect time for questions.

So I, I have a question though, as we queue up the questions. What does John Burnett do on Father's Day? Can you imagine the 6 kids?

Yeah, so I— my Father's Day present from my entire family was a new grill because our last grill Uh, the, you know, the pan for all the grease, I went to clean it and it just like just disintegrated. It had been long enough. And so, and I still tried to, uh, smoke a brisket on it, which was not recommended because I did almost disintegrate my entire house. So thankfully there were no— yeah, it was, it was very exciting. Nothing, nothing happened, it was fine. But anyway, so I have a new grill. We grill burgers Uh, hanging out with my, uh, my parents and went on a hike, which was nice. Uh, yeah, that was kind of it. Just chilled.

Very nice. I went on a hike in Sedona.

Oh, wow.

Did you see any javelinas?

No, no javelinas.

You don't want to see them, right? They won't see you, that's for sure.

Yeah, they're blind. They can be aggressive. Yeah, they can't see you. They're like ugly, poor-looking pigs.

They'll take you out. There's nothing— anything, you know, I feel like you go to Arizona, you go for a walk in the woods, everything is trying to attack you, from the plants to the animals. Like, I don't even know how it's enjoyable to go for a walk in the woods in Arizona. I mean, I know you have beautiful weather, but, you know, there's nothing in New England that's going to attack you and crush you and kill you and bite you and pinch you. Like, I feel like you're just on edge going out in Arizona.

I mean, you know, it's not like I'm on the board of tourism for Arizona. I mean, likely are. You're the fifth largest city. We got something going on.

I know you got great weather sometimes. Sometimes you can cook eggs off the pavement, but other than that, it's pretty good. Oh, we got We got a question.

We got a question. All right, all right, here we go from Rick Glukak. Hey Rick, good to see you. Uh, when picking a second county, should you consider a different type of land from your first county? Example, example, uh, desert or forest. So you want a little, you want a little variety in your inventory there, John Burnett?

I think so. Like that, so for me, that was the, the way that I approached it. So I wanted to have a varying climate from what I had. Um, and for me also, it was just as simple as I want winter properties and summer properties. You know, if you got a property that's, you know, 11,000 feet elevation, you know, it's going to be tough to sell that in February because chances are people aren't going to be able to get to it, right? And so, um, so having something that's in a slightly warmer climate is, is nice. Um, because that gives you seasonal variety. And, but yeah, I do like that. I think that especially once you feel like you are kind of acclimatized to the product that you're already selling, right? So maybe you're like, 5 Acres Sagebrush, I've got it, I can sell this, I've got it in stock. Then it's time to start adding another product. Right? And that's, that's part of the scaling process.

Interesting.

Why is that funny?

I feel self-conscious all of a sudden.

I don't look at it so much like Woods. I look at it like I like to have some under $1,000 properties, some mid-range, and some And I say, when I say expensive, remember I'm talking sub-$5,000. I like to have them, and you know, because of different payments, I just— that's the way that I, that I like to expand. But I like, I like the idea that you put forth there, John, too. I would actually—

I would really—

correct way of saying I disagree and give it a concur at the same time.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, and I do think, to your point, Mike, too, like variety comes in a lot of shapes and sizes. Yes.

But I mean, yeah, if you think about a grocery store, right?

So grocery store will stock milk, it will stock eggs, but they'll also stock different varieties and price points of milk too, right? And so like, yeah, so like having a, a $99 Sagebrush property, uh, per month and a $200 per month Sagebrush property, that's variety too.

That's a good point because you're right, they have the variety. But they also, like you, like you said, milk, you go to bread, you could have your Wonder Bread, you could have your middle, you could have your, you know, your the gluten-free, or you could have your high-end, it's going to be, you know, when pigs fly bread, it's frozen, like you, but it's all bread, but it caters to different people and different and different price points.

And you know what I love are the counties that have different climates within the county and different pricing tiers within the county. Then you don't have to leave the county. Yeah, Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier—

now we're talking tiers.

Yeah, all in one county. Mountains and trees over here, sagebrush over here. There are a few of those.

Watching you talk is like watching— when I used to watch Saturday Morning Kung Fu Theater, because you like talking, your mouth's moving. So you want to buy the land? Oh yeah. Oh. I love that. No, but you were just freezing at the right time. It was good freezes though. You had some good freezes in there. None of them were awkward.

Okay, good. Oh, I'm glad, I'm glad to hear that.

Uh, oh, Mark J. Podolsky. Yeah, I am worrying about it. I am worried. You know, I, I went for a, a semi-walk in Arizona, and I, as soon as I, you know, walked in and got pricked by the first bush, I was out. I'm out.

I made an orange from a tree last time I was in Arizona. It was, uh, the sourest thing I've ever put in my mouth.

We actually— well, what, Mark, one of your boot camps, I don't know, was Laura and I went for a long walk at night and we're like a couple miles away from where we were. We didn't have any water. I'm like, I'm so parched. I go, look at this, an orange tree, this is going to be great. We pull it down. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't orange. Instantly just dried your whole mouth up. I'm like, this is worse.

Yeah, I didn't realize this is— this show is going to devolve into Arizona shaming. I'm leaving.

No, we got some Arizona lovers out there, a couple people commenting in this. You got some support.

Okay, good, good. Oh, you probably— you probably grabbed the grapefruit.

I think that's what it was. It just didn't quench the thirst the way we thought it might. But, uh, anyone— any additional challenges selling land near the southern border? Huh. I have some. I have a bunch of land that I would consider near the southern border, and, um, no, no issues that we've had selling it.

Yeah, I mean, there's a— there's a pig for every barn. They all sell. Yeah.

I think that like there are certain areas, um, that like there have been areas where I have trouble selling and then there are other people that don't, right? And so now you just need to look at those people and see what they're doing. What are the platforms that they're using? What are the ways that they're marketing it, right? How are they moving it if I'm not?

Yeah.

I mean, if you're, if you're selling it on your own and you don't have conviction, that could be true. That could be challenging too, where you just can't even figure out why anyone would buy it. Yeah, you don't like it.

Yeah, it's true. Yeah, I will say that there are some southern border counties in Texas that can have like access issues where it's just It's a sea of rectangles and there's no— you have trouble finding the properties. So that's— that's— I mean, I sell in a lot of southern border states.

So yeah, part of the due diligence, make sure it has access. But to the point you were making, Mark, I often tell people you don't have to love the property. Just like if you had a donut shop and you hated blueberry muffins, would you take them off the shelf? That would be crazy. You would— you wouldn't be— So as long as we recognize there are people out there that love these properties and we're providing them these properties at a, at an easy way to own them, then you can fall in love with that. You don't have to fall in love with the app. I don't think there's very many of the properties that I bought and sold that I would enjoy going and just kind of living on a camping— it's just not for me. But that's okay. I'm not selling to me, I'm selling to the people that love them.

Exactly, exactly. But I think when you first start and you're not listening to Nightcap for whatever crazy reason, whatever crazy— you might, you might not know that. You might think, oh, I'm not gonna buy that Desert Square. Yeah, you know, who's gonna buy that?

Because people say that like it's a bad word, right? How many times you heard that, Mark? Desert Squares, like, oh, it's a bad word. No, it's not a bad word. People love them.

People love them. Yeah, you give the people what they want. At an affordable price. Yeah, affordable land, not John Burnett land, affordable land.

Which goes back to the point you made earlier, Mark. If the economy tanks and we buy things cheaper, we can sell them on lower monthly payments and still fit people's budget at the time because we're still going to get a great return. So yeah, it works, it all fits together.

100%.

100%.

Yeah. I found a county that I like where there are a lot of peeps like us. Do I just go ahead and send out letters knowing Land Geek and other buyers are there? Just go ahead. Well, you know, you probably could do that. I wouldn't call that the extent of the due diligence you should do, but it wouldn't be horrible. You know, the only thing you're going to make sure is you get your pricing right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I call that McDonald's due diligence. Well, because, you know, if there's a McDonald's on that corner, right? Yeah, they've done all the work and they know all the traffic counts.

Oh, right, right.

And they've done it all to pick that location. So Mary's like, wait, if all the land geeks are there, they've done a bunch of work to know that this is going to be a successful county. But I would go a little step further, just make sure you're buying the right price. But you are most likely in a very good profitable county if all these other jamuks are there.

One of the things we talked about at boot camp was the idea that, like, like we always talk about how you go where the fish are biting when you're fishing, right? And finding a good county where people are seeing success is like finding a lake where people are having success fishing in that lake. But within that lake, there are a variety of different places, right, that might have different fish or that might have no fish, right? There are bad places to fish in a good lake. And so it's important to kind of look around and identify where they're seeing success. And, um, you know, and then, yeah, nail.

And what if you're using a different lure? I think the lure would be like the marketing, right?

You know, How far can we take this metaphor?

How far can we go? Because, you know, you might be using a rubber worm, he might be using a real worm, he might be using a Daredevil, all these different lures. So, you know, you gotta— that's the marketing and the avatars because you're going out to certain fish. So what a great analogy, John. So good, so good. You know, Mary followed up with how, and I think she means how, when I said make sure you get the pricing right. Well, Mary, the thing I tell everybody when you first come to this business, and this is where Scott always helps me out— who's the Peter Parker? What was that? What do you work for, the Daily Planet? Is that it? Who's the guy with the cigar? That was, that was Peter Parker's boss.

Uh, Jameson.

Um, yeah, uh, Jay Jameson. Is that what it is?

Well, that guy, tuna cigars, like, hey, listen, there's a story out there. Land is being bought and sold. You gotta go find out how, how to get some, and let's do it. Like, you got to go out there and you got to figure it out. That's the story, that's the scoop. You got to get it, you got to start investigating, you have to search the people that are doing it, you have to look at the deals. You— so it's not an overnight thing, right? It's a process that you have to go through to really understand this, but you want to embrace your inner investigative reporter.

Okay, we gotta get Mike suspenders. Yeah, and a vest, a vest, a cigar.

Yeah. For sure.

Get that scoop, Mary. Come back.

Now, Mary, if you bought a lot yourself, I wonder, um, did you buy that for— because I don't know if I was talking to you, man. I was just talking to someone who actually is coming to our business, Mark, but the reason they're coming, they already have proof of concept from the opposite side. They bought several parcels on owner financing. I always find that's kind of cool because they already know it works because they, they were customers, clients. That's how they bought the land. So it's like proof of concept already there, right? They bought land that way.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.

And I would give Mary a tip also in her investigative reporting. Yes, right. Uh, Mary, go to wholesale.thelandgeek.com.

Such a brown-nose moment, but we'll let it slide.

How's that a brown-nose moment?

Because look how proud Mark is that you said this. I could have said that and I didn't.

And look, and Mary go, go shop, go look at that county on WholesaleTheLandGeek.com, dot thelandgeek.com, and see if there's some affordable land wholesale there. Or even my favorite, Landarb.

Maybe we should one night do a little, little Wheel of Fortune moment and just briefly go through the wholesale page. That'd be kind of fun.

Can we share our screens and do that? Let's, let's go shopping.

That would be so fun.

Yeah, because I was going shopping and sure enough I saw Bernette's ad and it was a financial hate crime. I'm like, bro, how's this wholesale? And his team put it up there, but he still sold it. Oh my God.

How did that happen again, Bernette?

Uh, I'm just blaming it on my team.

I didn't know.

Okay, good. Yeah, so yeah, when you get— when you get to this point in land investing, you can blame it on your team.

You know you're a good boss when you just throw your team directly under You can blame it on the team, but blame it on your team, John, but just don't blame it on the rain. Come on, man. Come on. I know they weren't real, but they were great.

Yeah, I can't believe you just— Milli Vanilli, the moment.

But it wasn't them because they didn't even sing it. I don't know who I'm quoting.

Yeah, they were lip-syncing. Yes. Oh good, I haven't even thought about Milli Vanilli in what, 20 years?

But that song, Mark, you remember that song of the day? You had to have sung that song today. We all did. We loved it.

Of course I did.

I loved it.

Which is not to love it. Who thinks about it? That's incredible genius. Mike Zeno is on fuego tonight. Yes, he is single-handedly saving this podcast.

Oh, Rick said we should give some land away. We've, you know, I think years ago we might have given land away, Scott. I know we've given things away in the past. Was it— we have, you know what we have? Scott has like a bazillion Land Nightcap t-shirts. Why don't we start giving those away?

All right, yep, no problem. We'll start giving them away. You guys pay postage and I'll send them your way.

All it takes is—

that's everything in life, you know, when you think you get something free, just pay postage.

It's still a good deal.

Or we bring them to the— oh, we bring them to the Dirt Rich Summit and we get up on stage. Can we get a rocket mark, one of those things at concerts? Can we have the Landy crew? Can we have one of those things shooting the shirts out into the audience?

The shirt cannon?

I want to have a baloney cannon.

Yeah, it would be amazing if we had an unlimited event budget.

Which we don't, but we already have the shirts. We already have the shirts.

I feel like J. Jonah Jameson. I can't pay that much for a story.

I have a bad shoulder. Maybe John, he's young, he can throw them out into the ocean.

I could do it. We should just, we should just throw out deeds or something. Just wad them up.

There you go.

Check under your chair. One of you has won just 5 acres in Costilla County, Colorado.

Yeah, I actually have a deed right here.

Is that for Costilla County, Colorado?

Ironically, SLVR.

Oh, what?

Somebody forgot to pay taxes. Oh, I wonder who that might have been.

Somebody on your team.

Someone on my team. Yeah. So, so by the way, I did set up a new automation today in Codex. Have you guys seen this?

No. What is Codex? Out of Claude?

No, Claude is Claude. Codex is ChatGPT. OpenAI. Okay, so you go to Record and Replay. It's a plugin, Record and Replay. And then you go and then you do computer use. So it's two plugins. Let's get geeky, shall we? And then And then you record what you're doing. Like, it follows your keystrokes. And then it creates a skill. And then you create an automation. So now every day, it's going to go in and download the mail for me. I just have to— I have to actually log in.

You created this where you can play it at any time, and it'll record a new skill?

Yeah, I just recorded myself going and opening the mail. Downloading it to the file, and then putting it to the right, you know, folder. And then it's going to create an automation to do that every morning, check the mail.

Wow.

Well, you know what I do with my AI? I go to the wine store, and I take a picture of wine, and it knows me so well, it tells me if I should buy the bottle. That's pretty good, too.

It's just all it does is it just says yes.

Yeah. Behind the counter, he's like, sir, can I help you? I'm like, I'm all set. I go, we got a winner! It's like Michael—

Mike's just sitting in the box at Franzia and his phone being like, should I do this?

It rates the wine. It says, for you, this is the one. Let it sit a while when you open. I'm like, oh, you know so well.

Yeah, I'm fine. I'm talking about ending drudgery in our businesses and Mike's talking about wine.

They go hand in hand.

How?

One hand is ending drudgery, one hand is drinking wine. Hand in hand.

All right, or sometimes both hands on the wine.

All right, more questions, come on, bring them in.

Boone's Farm for Mike. I feel like Mike's had a little Boone's Farm tonight.

Mark J. Podolsky says either you get a shirt cannon, we book Milli Vanilli, you decide. That Rick Colcock said. I think one of them—

I vote Milli Vanilli.

I think Milli or Vanilli has passed away, unfortunately. One of the two, haven't they? Isn't— am I wrong?

Was it Vanilli or Milli?

I don't know. One of the— one of the Illies is gone.

I don't know who these—

we could either have Milli or Vanilli. We can't have Milli Vanilli or the Shirt Cannon. Or the Shirt Cannon. Well, the Shirt Cannon is John Burnett. He's got a rocket arm. We just decided. He's going to be out there rifling them out there because he's not going to pull a shoulder muscle when he does it like I would. I pointed out the window, hurt my arm the other day.

Look at that.

Can't be doing that anymore. So John, you're throwing the shirts out. John is the official shirt cannon.

I'm the shirt cannon.

But we gotta get the ones, eat baloney by land and the nightcap. We gotta do them both.

Yeah, I still like the idea of just throwing out slices of baloney like Frisbees.

Smacking people in the head.

Yeah, put it— put in the chat what you want, what, what merch you'd want at the Dirt Ridge Summit, as far as like which, which shirt would you want from the shirt cannon. And then put it in the getting—

put in there if you're actually going. Who's going? Who's already— Mark, they can register right now. Isn't pre-registration open? I believe— am I wrong? Maybe I'm— maybe I'm jumping the gun. Scott, you know, I think Scott knows all things Land Geek. It's open, Scott, or not?

I'll—

I will check for you. How's that sound?

All right, okay, because I want to know who's going.

Yeah, Mike, or is— yeah, is it me, or is Dude Buddy being very quiet in that wicker?

I think he's gonna be asleep by the time we're done.

I've spoken a few times and I was not acknowledged, so I just— I figure that You were freezing. I'm not coming through, so I'm just listening because we're like this.

You're coming through.

Bad internet.

Oh, now he's frozen.

Oh, that was my impersonation of Scott. You were freezing.

He's free. Yeah, it was like, it's like those old Naked Gun episodes.

I'll check on the Dirt Ridge Summit, okay?

All right. Oh, we got people! I'm in! Rick Colcox and Jeff's in!

Don's there!

Group hug! I feel it, Don!

I—

it's, you know, it's the first, second, and third, right? Am I wrong?

No, it's first to the third October, right?

Yeah, yeah. The sound of Scott thinking, the typing.

Oh, sorry.

No, no, it's good.

It's okay.

I'm trying to find, I'm trying to find the, the pre-registration. I'll let you know if I find it. And I'll quit typing so loudly.

Very gingerly.

We only have 6 minutes left. You better get your questions in. This, this episode is flying by.

I jumped into Cloud Cowork for the first time today. I'm like super late to the party.

I know.

How great is it?

It's great. I hooked it up to Gmail and I said I had it write an MD file describing my voice for how I write emails. And it did a great job. It was crazy.

Wait, say it again. What did it do?

So I had it— it's hooked up to Gmail and I said, go through my emails and write a descriptor that I can use in an AI project. That has my voice for how I write emails. Because I don't like the way AI writes emails. Yeah.

Do you use like the anti-AI rules? I gotta send you that markdown file. So you go—

yeah, yeah.

Wait a minute. So you can trick the AI to not sound like AI?

Yeah, you give it rules. It's like no em dashes. Like the em dashes is a good—

is a giveaway.

Yeah, you know, it's not X, it's Y.

It's kind of verbose rhetorical questions.

Yeah. Spells everything correctly. I love this proper grammar.

Everybody's chiming in on Scott's typing. I was trying to find a nickname for Scott's typing style. Maraca is already used. And then Scott's typing is more distracting than Mark's ice.

Sorry, guys.

What are we getting Don back on?

Yes, here's a question.

By the way, why is XAMPP getting all the love? It's LG Pass data powered by XAMPP. Go into LG Pass and get the discount. If you just go straight to XAMPP, there's no discount.

20%.

Yeah, you got to follow the right path.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, so that's the question Mary has. The program to identify property owners, the Zillow to physically— yes, but since you don't want to physically mail the letters with your hands, you have to go to LG Pass so it mails automatically for you. We used to hand mail, and when we say we, it was not me, it was my wife and my youngest daughter. So, but, um No longer.

Nice. Did your— do your— does your daughter ever sort of like be like, Dad, can we talk? Remember when I used to make me handwrite?

I gave her 25 cents a lettermark.

Are you kidding? No.

And she bought an iPhone. She did so many.

Okay, can we stop the show now? Because if my kids hear this, they're gonna get so mad. Oh my God, the child labor! I, I was making so much money on them. Not 25 cents a letter.

Oh no, she did enough to get an iPhone, then she quit. Who wants to be writing letters?

Well, I guarantee you had a much, much better Father's Day than I did.

Oh man.

That's fantastic. Did you ever pay the kids?

I mean, my oldest was 1 and a half when I started, so wasn't really—

I mean, it'd be messy handwriting for sure.

It would be very messy. I'm sure you would have thrown some stamps.

Probably have a higher open rate everywhere.

No drool on the envelope.

Oh man, I did.

I mean, like, they would like They spilled water on my MacBook once.

They did.

I mean, they contributed in other ways, so it was great. That's awesome. Yeah.

How soon after—

let's answer Mary's last question, shall we? Um, how soon after starting do you send out your first batch of letters?

It all depends. If you're on your own, it could be a long time. Uh, it's not being funny there, it's just true. Sometimes people have a hard time actually making that very first step, right? Mailing letters, um, it can be a bit daunting at first when people— I know, I don't know if Mary's— I'm trying to remember by the name, but if Dawn's saying, is she in flight school? But in flight school, week 2, there's one of the advantages of flight school, when there's many, is the fact that you have to take action quick and you have to, you know, get in the game quickly. We have you get in as quick as you can without making mistakes. So That's 2 weeks in, Mary. You'd be mailing letters.

Mary's starting with the starter kit. And, uh, I think—

oh, you know Mary?

I know Mary. Yep, she, she is awesome. She's out on the West Coast. She's a social worker. Maybe you want me to say that, Mary. But anyway, uh, Mary, uh, had, had, uh, some enjoyable conversations with you. But I think what I would do, because I started with a similar, uh, I started with a similar path. Uh, I started with the Investor Toolkit way back in the day, which was a do-it-yourself program much like the Starter Kit is. And I think for you, Mary, I would just recommend set out what you would maybe consider an aggressive goal for yourself to, you know, if you got the Starter Kit maybe 2 weeks ago, uh, I want you to mail by July 1st, right? Yeah, or June or June or July 15th, right? But, but setting a goal, set a goal for yourself that you're mailing by, you know, week 4, uh, because I think with 4 weeks of learning, going through the starter kit a couple times, you know, doing your investigative reporting on your county, looking at all the different areas, I think, uh, I think 4 or 5 weeks in should be able to mail.

Yeah.

Don't forget Mark AI, he's in there with you.

Yeah, yeah, and we're in it with you.

We are here, all four of us, every Tuesday night.

Cheers to that. Cheers to that, fellas. Well, next week, guys, I will be back in my home office and not as laggy or jumpy or Max Headroom-ish. So, and with much less wicker.

Wicker's nice.

Nice.

Wicker's nice.

And next, next week will be my last week for a month. Yeah, then it'd be fun again.

Then it'll be 3 to 2 weeks.

You should pick the topic then next week, Mark, your last topic. What do you want it to be?

Let's, let's talk about quantitative easing and how that could affect the land business. What? Let's do that.

That sounds like a great—

it'd be almost, almost as compelling as today's topic.

Well, we answered the topic in the first like 3 minutes. It was like, yeah, doesn't matter.

Yeah, well, I mean, it ended up being a fun episode, right? Hopefully.

I like the dark Scott. Oh, like a— like he's on the dark side. Like you're, you're like, uh, not a Jedi, you're a Sith warrior.

You got it. Yeah, dark boss Jedi.

By the way, in closing, Scott, anything on the horizon for a good new Star Wars movie? Anything coming out?

I mean, uh, well, the, the next, the next major Star Wars feature will be, uh, in May of Mandalorian. No, that was last month. It was, eh, uh, yeah, it was— it wasn't a true Star Wars movie in my opinion. It was like a Mandalorian TV episode. So the next feature film is May 2027. Who is it? But, uh, Ryan Gosling is in it.

Is it a backstory of one of the characters?

No, it's a, it's a future-forward story after all of the Skywalker episodes.

Yeah, no, I have to say the saddest one I ever saw is one, the one at the end. It was like, it was a one, a one-off and they all die at the end. That was so depressing.

Yeah, Rogue One. That's an amazing—

so depressing. Like, I was like, huh, they all just died.

Not to give anything away.

Yeah, exactly. Spoiler alert.

It's like 5 years old. Hope you haven't seen Rogue One yet.

I hope we don't have anybody on the call going through a Star Wars journey. Yeah, sorry about that timeline. Uh, good job, dude. Good job. All right, everybody, this was fun. Thanks for a good night. We'll see you next week with a, with a very enjoyable topic, I'm sure.

Yes, extremely enjoyable.

It's better than quantitative easing.