Resources And Information A County Must Be Able To Provide

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, thelandgeek.com and on this week's roundtable, we have almost all the usual suspects. We've got Mike Zano, the Zen master. Breathe in the mailing, breathe out the marketing. How are you, Mike?

I'm doing great. Glad to hear you asking. Thank you.

Good to see you. And I'm just gonna go through everybody else really quickly. Dude. Buddy. The nightcap OG Scott Boston. We had the technician, Eric Peterson. I love it when you call me Big Papa Tate Litchfield and and last but not least, Scott Todd from Scott todd.net landmoto.com learn anything about anything investor ninjas.com so we've got a great topic, I think, and it's a really important topic because if you don't get this right, the whole process goes bad. It's county research and the question that we had from boot camp. And by the way, our next boot camp is April 23rd to the 25th. Go tolandgeek.combootcamp and register because we I think we do have limited spots on Zoom and do that make sure you get a spot is what info must haves does a county must be able to provide relatively easily when selecting a county. So we want it so not only should the county be say quote unquote good, which means that other investors are there. Right. We know deals can definitively be done there. But what makes it easy to work with and why not start with you, Zen Master?

Okay, so I think of a few things, but I could tell you that I think I'm needing less and less contact from the county. There's different services out there now. Like we use datatree and whatnot. So a lot of things that traditionally I would go to the county for, I can find from third party, I guess you'd say services. So but as far as the county itself, I'd like to be able to, especially during the due diligence phase when we're doing county research, like when we're going to mail there, like what the use that the property has. So if I want to have our team reach out and talk to the county, I want them to be accessible. I know there are some counties that will just ring forever and there won't be any contact. So you may not get a definitive answer as to different aspects of what can be done with the property. So I guess I'd start with that, you know something that they're actually going to pick the phone up and be and communicate with You. Because I. I know there are some counties that aren't very good at. That aren't very good at the communication. They. Maybe they get a lot of inquiries. Maybe they don't have a short staff or maybe. I don't know. There could be a lot of reasons.

But I know the. I know the reason, Mike. It's because they're a government employee. They're getting paid no matter what. That's why.

Well, I sort of.

That's why.

That's why I don't really have a. I don't have a say. I'm sort of. I'm sort of a government employee myself. So I don't know how. I don't want to say to that.

But, Mike, let's face it, right? The house is on fire. You don't have to be nice to the homeowner. Correct. You are a nice guy. But you're getting paid either way. Your customer service is not really.

I think we're very compassionate.

Yeah, of course. And you're a hero. You're saving lives because you want to save lives. Someone in that, in that government employee office might be having a bad day and they might. And they could take it out on you and they're getting paid either way.

A lot of times I think it's because the people, they. Inside the, you know, maybe the administration, they don't always treat them the best. So they. I think there's a secret to dealing with them is showing them that they are valuable and showing them that you do care about them. Because they may not get a lot of that from, you know, know, higher up in the, in the administration. So there is a secret to sauce, to sort of, you know, they come across that. With that sort of, you know, rough attitude. But, you know, if you, you can break them with some. With some politeness. I agree with what you're saying, right. In a certain context.

And if Jeff Axton is listening to this, Jeff, this is a good tip for you.

He said. Because he is.

Admitted.

He is. That's right. He is in charge of a whole shift. That's a good point. But he's very nice. I gotta say.

He. Yeah, no, he's. No, he's great. He's great. I joke.

We're off to a great start. I'll call you.

Once again, poor Mike. Zano, man Mike and Mark. Just. Here we go, here we go.

Anyways, I did like what you brought up about datatree. And for those of you that are interested in a discount on Datatree to get that data, just go to datatree.com thelandgeek and we have a special discount for you there. Scott Bossman dude, buddy. Nicap og, what about you? What, what does a county need to provide you relatively easily when you're selecting a county?

Well, I agree with Mike. I think there should be. I like it when there are people at the county who are very willing to help you get to know these people. So. So communication is one thing, resources are another thing. I mean, I think the county needs to have a good GIS site and I love being able to pull data from the county easily. If I can go to the county website and find the back taxes, you know, find a possibly deed copies online, that type of thing, it's not necessary. But I love a county like that that has those online resources. So you're going to touch on one mark that I wanted to steal. I'll let you touch on that one.

But you can steal my thunder all day long.

I mean, Simply File is huge, right? Like how many times when I first started out did I snail mail something to a county that wasn't on Simply File and I was 20 cents off on a check or something and they snail it, snail it back to me. And it takes, you know, a month and a half to get a deed recorded because I made some clerical error on the deed. And with simplify, it's amazing because if you've made a clerical error on the deed, they get back to you same day. Sometimes it's a very easy fix and the deed still gets recorded that day. So that's another resource that I'd like the county to have.

Yeah, I mean, I don't even want to work in counties that don't have simplifile personally, but I'd love to know what. I love it when you call me Big Papa Tate.

Litchfield thinks, yeah, I mean this is all really good. I definitely echo what everyone just mentioned and said. Really for me it comes down to is the information easily accessible and how difficult is it to use the county's resources? At the end of the day, I'm not going to be the one using them. I'm going to outsource it to a va and so I need it to be user friendly. In addition to that, I want to know, ideally, I'd like to be able to pay my taxes online too. That's, that's kind of a big one for me right now is can I go online and pay taxes? Because if I have to print out certified, you know, send a check and then hope that it got Applied correctly. That's kind of another nightmare. So I guess the big one for me is taxes online. Can I pay my taxes online?

Can you pay your taxes online? You know, that's. That's one that we haven't really thought about a whole lot. We really talked about. That's a great one. Wow. So record online taxes online. You know, nobody wants to do anything physical anymore. I wouldn't. Who wants to write a physical check? Right. There used to be these things are called stamps. You have to, like, put a stamp on an envelope and like, seal an envelope.

You know, I've never owned a checkbook, Mark.

Yeah. That is unbelievable to me.

In my whole life, I've never owned a checkbook.

Wow.

I don't even know how to fill out one of those things.

It is, you know, it is the best time ever to be alive. It really is. The technician, Eric Peterson. What are you looking for to make a county easier?

Well, I think the essentials, I mean, we've kind of talked about them, but you've got to have the information available to be able to mail the properties you want to mail. That's going to be an owner name, an address, an APN number, possibly a size, maybe an assessed value. Those things absolutely required in order to mail. Everything beyond that really goes to making our lives easier. So, you know, when we talk about being able to file deeds with simplifile, when we talk about paying taxes online or being able to look up sales records online or pull previous deeds online, like, those are all really helpful and they speed up our process, but they're not necessarily required, I guess.

Okay. Okay. I like it. I like it. Scott. Todd, you get the last word on what you're looking for for an easy, relatively easy county to work in.

I mean, everything above everything has already been mentioned. And one of the things that I do appreciate is a good GIS map. I think that's important. I think one of the other elements to that GIS map is not just having the GIS map there, but having something that's a little bit more specific, the ability to get the GPS coordinates. Because when you can't find a piece of land is the most frustrating thing ever. I own. I own some land in a county where they don't have a good GIS map. In fact, they don't have a GIS map. And I called up the county and I said, hey, how do I find the property? And they're like, we don't know. I said, you don't know where the property is? Okay, what about the plat map. And they go, we don't have any plat maps. Now, this is a Texas county. It's extremely rural. And they have no records, it seems, or at least they tell me they don't have any records. And I said, well, how do I find the property? And they said, well, you got to hire a surveyor. So the surveyors got to then go out there and find the property, and then you got to go find the survey. The place is a mess. It's just an absolute mess. Now, luckily, the people that we bought the land from, they gave us. They gave us a very old survey. And from that very old survey, I can tell you that this land that I own is basically about a mile away from the U.S. mexican border. And beyond that I can't really tell you. I can't match it up to any Google Maps. I can't really see where the formation is because I have nothing to reference it across. I do have a section, township, and range. And at that point, it becomes a treasure hunt. That's what it becomes, is a treasure hunt. So, you know, being able to just to get something simple like the GPS coordinates is extremely helpful.

I feel like Scott Bossman has an inappropriate joke here with you being a mile away from the border. But look at the self discipline. Look at him just not, not taking the bait.

I don't stir the pot anymore. I do it in very subtle ways.

When Scott Bossman wants to stir the pot, he stirs the pot. That's the, that's the lesson here.

That's true. That's true.

It's not up to you to get to, to entice him to do it. He strikes when he's ready. See, I'm not. I, I'm even questioning what he's drinking out of right there, that cup. What does that cup say? Anything special? Is there little signals that are. That are going off right there that we should be.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Mike Zano knows, you know, if there's no bourbon in that cup, you know, for nightcap, then, you know, he's relatively calm with the stirring. But what do you think, Mike Zaino?

I'm not sure. I was just waiting for you to say something maybe about physical therapists or about pilots or something. I thought maybe there'd be some, some. Some sort of comments on those things.

To drop.

Huh?

You're waiting for the left hook. The. The Podolsky left hook, right? Correct. See, Mark, what you've done to Mike, you've broken them. Two weeks, it. All it took was Two weeks for you to break the. The nicest guy on this pod. He's got no words.

Yeah, I. And I can't tell you the, the pride I take in that. And you know, it feels good. It feels.

Someone secretly told me that. That I won't name any names who told me this, but they secretly told me that they can't wait for you to turn your attention over to Eric Peterson once again.

It's been far too long.

You know what? I wanted to ask Eric a question. What are you looking most forward to? To the boot camp coming up in a couple weeks.

Let me see. As you know, I'm probably not looking that much forward to giving my presentation, but I'll do it and I'll do my best with it. But generally speaking, I enjoy the VIP room, working with the coaching students, helping them through, through different homework assignments and things that they get while at boot camp, and giving them feedback on the work they've done and helping them grow their businesses. It's also fun to meet some of the new people that come to boot camp and are just getting started with land and kind of hearing their stories and, and what they're interested in.

No, absolutely. And for those, you know, the toolkit, even flight school, I mean, a little less for flight school, but definitely toolkit people. That two and a half days of land investing immersion is invaluable because on Sunday everything is clear. And just to have the opportunity to ask Mike and Scott questions directly and get those answered is amazing. And as well as all the other coaches. But Mike and Scott even take. They do a working lunch just for Q and A. So that's literally two hours of just, you know, pure Mike and Scott, you know, goodness. So, I mean, it's fat free, it's low calorie, it's phenomenal. What a great way to spend your lunch. Right? You know, but before we get off the topic of what makes a good county, I think Scott Bossman brought up a good point, accepting online notarizations. So, Scott Bossman, do you want to just mention that before we shift gears into the tip of the week?

Yeah, I think another thing that has become, well, it's very time efficient. Right. And has become kind of a, a benefit here the last couple years is the county's acceptance of online notarizations. If I'm, you know, at home on a Saturday and need to notarize a deed, man, I get on onlinenotary.net and I have it done in 20 minutes. Is there a charge to that? Sure. But you know, it's a good investment on my end. And then, you know, so I really like working in counties now where those online organizations are accepted. And you can even do. If you need witnesses, they'll do witnesses as well on these platforms.

So.

That's amazing. I used to be so awkward. For me, I'd go to the bank and I'd be doing a Florida deed, and I have to get two witnesses. And I would literally just be like, hey, excuse me, to the people in line at the bank. Would you mind witnessing this? Like, what am I witnessing? I'm like, oh, it's just a deed. You know, there's literally no liability. You don't even have to, you know, it's such a silly thing. Scott Todd. In Florida, like, it's just anyone's signature. They don't get it. There's like, no, no verification that they're the witness.

Okay, well, I'll get on that mark. I'll take care of that. Sorry you had that problem.

It's another.

I don't know who to. Oh, but don't worry, I'll make sure.

It'S a government employee.

There we go.

I think it's a bunch of them called, you know, representatives and senators. I think it's a bunch of them.

Yeah. I mean, who, who thought that was a good idea in Florida? Let's just annoy these, these investors and make them have two witnesses on a deed, but no one really knows who they are. Just as long as someone scribbles something on a piece of paper, we'll feel better about it.

That doesn't happen in any other state, does it?

It doesn't. It's. It's, you know, I'm telling you, the swamp does weird things. Right, Scott Todd?

I don't know about that. I don't know.

I don't know.

Are we now turning the aim at Florida? State of Florida? I don't think we want to do that.

State.

Are they going to call it the Swamp State now?

You don't want 20 million Florida men coming after some Arizona dude. I'm, you know, SWAT man. Does our reputation scare people anyway?

That's a good point. I want to formally apologize to the state of Florida for this inappropriate joke. And 100% I was joking. Keep the witnesses on the deeds. I'm not bothered at all. Doesn't bother me one bit.

It's only a headache if you're not prepared, right? If you know you have to do it. It's kind of like flying on a budget airline. It's like you get on a budget airline, people complain, oh, the seat doesn't rec. I got no leg room. And guess what? If you know that going into it, it's all good, nothing to worry about.

I don't know that I've ever, even on a regular airline had a problem with the seat not reclining. I wouldn't even notice t. Oh, you.

Don'T recline your seat. Are we going here again, Scott? Not all of us fly private, man. Not all of us fly private.

Well, you know, maybe you should. Maybe you should.

I definitely think he should if he's going to be the person that declines.

Yeah, that's right.

Why should the rest of us suffer?

You know, Mark the bank, I go to the notary, she goes and gets the witnesses. But it might be because, like government employees, I treat her very nicely.

That's, you know, I think there's a lesson in there. There's a good business lesson in there. Treat every golden rule it. Treat everyone the way you'd want to be treated. As Derek Sivers likes to say, don't. Don't live life as if it's your last day on earth. Live life as if everyone that you're interacting with, it's their last day on earth. That is a good quote and it's a really good reminder. So, you know, for those of you that are still with us on the podcast, once in a while it is worth staying on through our shenanigans because there is a, you know, a little.

That a death quote?

No, it's not a death quote, but there is some wisdom that we, we drop now and then.

So let's start the next podcast with that quote instead of tearing everyone down and then talking about it at the end.

I don't remember Eric Peterson getting torn down at all. So, which leads us to this week's sponsor, flight school. Learn how the next 16 weeks can literally transform your life. Go up the mountain of land investing with Scott Todd as your Sherpa. He has done deals thousands of times. He will take you up that mountain quickly, safely and efficiently. Oh, and by the way, the tuition for flight school ain't going to cost you nothing. Guaranteed you're going to make that money back 180 days or less. Just show us your work. Follow what Scott tells you to do. You can't lose. Learn more. Go to the landgeek.com training thelangic.com training schedule, a call with government employee Mike Zeno or the irascible Scott bossman. Learn more.

I remember when Eric was irascible.

That those days are gone now. I, you know, after all the, the stirring that Scott Bossman has done. Nightcap. Come on, Mike. Zano.

Sam.

All right.

But we are now at that point of the podcast we're going to ask for the tip of the week. A website, a resource, a book, something actionable for the auto passive income listeners to go improve their businesses, improve their lives. I actually have one. You guys want to know what it is?

Yeah, because we have nothing.

I thought this was interesting. It's Phrase IO.

Oh yeah. This is old school. This is old news.

Yeah, I've heard this.

Come on. This thing is. I looked at this thing six months ago.

Okay.

I rejected it already 10 times.

Dominate organic search results by being the best answer sign up free. Phrase feels like a next gen content tool that's not just exciting for search engine optimization, but for writers as well. In my mind, that's more important to create successful content. The first content optimization software your team will actually enjoy using. Cut your content research time from hours to seconds. Frase automatically provides an intelligent outline for your target keywords. Simply input your topics and get the perfect recipe for your content to rank number one. Like, hey, is land investing a good investment? Why should I invest in raw land? Put that on your blog. Have Freys help you with writing the content. And certainly if you need more help, you can just email Scott Todd directly.

So my advice, don't use it. I already did it and nothing happened, man. Just saying.

Yeah, Mike, do you want to talk about your tip?

It's just, I think this is a great tip. Just you can use. There could be some purposes for this, but I think it's great to just look at. If you go to this persondoesnotexist.com every time you go there, refresh it, it's a new person that doesn't exist. It's really interesting.

Yeah, that's really cool with artificial intelligence right there.

I mean if you want to change your Facebook picture, just be somebody else. I guess it's the website you go to. You just pick a picture.

Actually a pretty good idea, except you only get one picture.

Well, you keep refreshing it and you get a new picture every time. It's like these people don't exist. It's kind of interesting.

It's not bad. What do you think, Eric Peterson?

I like it. I'm going to tell my Facebook team about it because when they create new accounts, they can go grab a profile image.

There you go. There you go. Well, I appreciate everybody taking my good natured hazing very well, and I thought it was a good topic, and hopefully the listeners are getting value. If you are, there's three little favors you can do. Follow us, then. Certainly rate and send us a review. Send a screenshot of that review to support thelangeek.com we're going to send you the course on wholetailing how to double your money 30 days or less for free. Scott Bossman, are we good?

Yeah, we're excellent.

All right. Eric, are we good?

We are great.

Tate?

Yep, all good.

Mike, Doing great.

Scott. Todd, are we good?

We are, man.

We're.

We're good.

We're great.

We're golden. Raised out.

Be fantastic. All right, let's do this. One, two, three, let's.

Freedom.

Freedom ring.

See, this is what happens when Cherry is not on the podcast.

We're just.

I'm not. I'm not as kind as I normally would be.

Does she keep. She holds you accountable to the kind. She's the kindness fairy.

She's kind of like. Yeah, kind of. Right. The dynamic changes. This is, you know, it's like an old boys network now.

It feels like just being a little critical here. This podcast feels like it's like missing something. Like, it's like, is it me? Is it me? Or can we just be honest? Like, can we just critique that? I don't know if it's even appropriate to critique it while we're recording, but we're an open book.

I'd say it's not one of our best podcasts for sure.

The best.

I don't know.

I mean, just like, the energy wasn't there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's almost like, you see, if it got to the end of, I don't know, a Hollywood production, they'd be like, just can it. Just can it. But not us, because we did it. We did it. We did our best. And this proves a very important point in my opinion, Mark, that everybody should learn from this podcast, which is Done beats Perfect. This is the classic example of done beats perfect. We did it.

Our hardest.

I agree. I mean, I would give the podcast if we were going to grade it. This is a C minus. That being said. Right. There's still some value in here for people that want to know about what makes a good county.

Yeah.

Mark, don't forget. C's get degrees.

C's get degrees. That's right.

We should one time do the podcast completely in reverse.

I love it. I love it. Like a memento podcast.

Start with this, and then we'll go into Let Freedom Ring and Then we'll go into the answers and at the very end we'll reveal the question next.

You know what? I think next week we should do that. That's a great idea. That's an. A podcast idea.

Do we reveal the question or do we let everybody guess?

Everybody has to guess what the question is. But if we don't know the question, how are we gonna. Well, I guess we'll know the question.

You'll have to text it to us.

But then, then essentially what will happen is at the end of the podcast when we say our topic was, then the. The listener will have to figure out what it was. Right.

Pick a cool topic. That would make that really fun to too.

That would be really cool with some different twists.

Twists.

Lots of twists. I feel like if Christopher Nolan had a podcast, this would be his idea.

Yeah, maybe. Maybe the question has nothing to do with land either.

Right?

Absolutely genius. If it had nothing to do with land and it still came across as if it did have to do with land.

Uh huh.

Yeah, that's good. And I'm kind of shocked this podcast considering all the hazing everyone got. No one made fun of my hair. It's shocking.

That's because we heard how you speak to your hairstylist and none of us wanted to go down that road.

She did find a better time for me.

It worked.

Yeah, she texted me back. Don't worry.

You're probably a great tipper. That's what it is.

I, I know what, I'm pretty good tipper, but I'm really generous come the holidays, so. Yeah, so she, you know, she knows if she puts up with me for a whole year, there's gonna be a payoff for it.

Hey, that's the lesson with the county. Send them great presents on the holidays.

He can't do that. They can't accept it. You can't, you can't. You can't give government employees muffins.

And no one, they didn't send them back. They ate them.

That, that you could, you can do, but you can't send an individual. You can send the office.

Yes.

Food. Right. But you can't send it one individual employee. Like let's say the recorder, quote unquote gift. Well, that.

I think it'll be kind of weird. You're better off doing the whole office.

No, you're definitely better off doing the whole office. Legally speaking, you have to do the whole office, otherwise they, they can't legally accept it.

Mike, how does that work at the fire?

This is in Boston.

Yeah. So there's There's a dollar amount we're not supposed to accept, but it's per person. So a lot of times people bring down, you know, they'll bring food and stuff like that, and sometimes they'll bring a gift card or whatnot. But most often we get lots of food deliveries.

But.

But does that. Do you guys write down the address?

Go.

Okay, well, this address brought us food, but this one has not.

No, it's typically after we've helped somebody, so the good deed has been done.

You know, like I told you a few weeks ago, I was out putting out a fire with my feet and no one any food or anything. So I'm just saying I'm still just kind of curious if it was like, just me being out there in the community and they see me or if I actually have to go to someone's house and like, hose down. Hose down the water hose.

Yeah. Probably need to wear your shirt because right now, the person that would probably reward you would be a government employee. And we know how they are. I mean, because you did. There's a government property that you helped.

Well, they're probably. They're probably aggravated that I put a fireman out of work for the day.

Oh, yeah. Well, we show up and it's like, you know, the police officer. Yeah, I put it out my extinguisher.

Yeah.

I don't arrest people.

Look at this truck, baby. We want to let the water flow, man. Okay, we're gonna arrest somebody now. Get in the back of the truck. Don't run away, though.

Yeah, it doesn't work that way.

Yeah, yeah, that's garbage, man. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it can't. Look, I'm not. I'm sure that, you know, when the sirens blare, that. That you get some, you know, like, emergency rush going through your.

Your body.

Like, we gotta go. And then, you know, you get there and here's the police officer. He's already put out the fire. You're like, dude, thanks for nothing.

Yeah, exactly. First of all, it is a great stress relief. You know, imagine how you all feel in traffic, right? Imagine, you know, blow an air horn, everybody moves. That does feel pretty good.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

You can clear traffic out and that. That does have a feeling. That's pretty good.

Yeah, yeah, pretty good.

And actually, Larry David did make fun of that in his last episode of Curb, because. Yeah. So anyways, this was fun. So look, even C minus podcasts are okay. There's a lesson. Next time, we'll definitely try harder. Next time. This is a lesson for tria. Don't miss the podcast because the listener is punished.

This is an Easter egg podcast. There's some real gold in there. You just got to find it.

That's right. And Happy Easter, everybody. Hope you guys had a great Easter.

It's two weeks after Easter by the time they hear this, but you guys.

Don'T know that you are. Whatever. We better hang up before we say something else terrible. Thanks everybody.

Thanks for listening to the Art of Passive Income Podcast. Start your journey at www.thelandgeek.com and www.scotttaub.net. rate and review the podcast and email supporthelandgeek.com your screenshot for a free Passive Launch kit.