The Land Flip That Went Wrong: Costly Mistakes and the Systems They Built

Eat baloney, buy land!

Oh!

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! Get the feeling, Mike Zaino. Welcome back everybody to another episode of, uh, Land Geek Nightcap. Tonight's different. Mark's out, John is out, which means you're getting the original OG Nightcap crew. Well, people don't know there were 4 of us. There were 4 of us. There were 2 of us.

Wow, that's a great quote.

Just 2 guys talking land deals, telling stories, sharing wins. Uh, we had segments A little bit of everything in between. We did karaoke. So tonight we're bringing it back old school. We even got the sweatsuitos out. Nothing fancy, just a couple of guys who spent the last decade, Mike, the last decade. Yeah. Doing deals, thousands of deals now.

Thousands of deals. And, you know, we started this Nightcap, it could be how many years ago?

We started this Nightcap in 2018.

Oh my goodness. Yeah, 8 years.

The spring of— the spring of 2018.

And I'll tell you all out there watching, don't go looking for those old episodes. They were ugly.

There were some good ones, man.

There were some good ones. And there was some— I mean, Scott and I originally did this just to engage the community, um, uh, just to, you know, uh, just help people out. And so, you know, we were always getting together, having a couple of cocktails, talking And we said, hey, why don't we, why don't we do that, uh, why don't we do that live? So that's how it started.

Yeah, well, Mark used to have Coffee Talk, and we thought, wouldn't it be fun to bring something to the nighttime crew? Because a lot of people, you know, they burn the midnight oil doing this business. So we thought, yeah, let's go live online. And back then we did it late, we did it at 10 PM Eastern.

Yes, it was difficult.

Yeah, some guy, some guy fell asleep a few times.

Well, you know, got a lot of people popping in here. When I see Todd McCallum, he just signed up for flight school. He's going to crush it. I'm excited to see you.

Congrats, Todd. That's awesome. Good for you guys. Good to see you. Yeah, Jeff Evenson is here. Brad Kelly, Isaac Burke, Scott Elliott, Jeff Cunningham. We're a little, uh, short on viewers tonight. Maybe it's because they know Mark's on vacation. Maybe they heard that last week and they're like, I'm out. That was a mistake.

I doubt it. But you know, one thing I gotta do is keep turning this AC down lower and lower. It's, it's, it's summertime here.

This sweatsuit was getting hot, so I'm like, yeah, I don't think I'll be wearing this, uh, the whole time because it's, it's warm here as well. But I mean, we used to wear it every week, right?

Yes, yes. Yeah.

And why, Mike, what, what's up with the sweatsuitos? Why, why are we wearing sweatsuitos anyway?

Well, here's the thing. We always joke that this is a sweatsito business. I mean, you get into this, your neighbors are gonna, you know, once you retire from your job and you're just kind of hanging around going out to the mail in your slippers and your sweatsito, people are like, what do they do? What does that guy do? Um, and so we coined the term it's a sweatsito business. Um, you know, we got these, have matching bottoms. I don't have mine on tonight typically, but that's what I wear in the cool weather when I go out and get my, uh As my wife's cutting the lawn, you know, she hasn't worked a J-O-B in a decade, so she's cutting the lawn. Um, so, and I walk out like this, people like, what's up with this couple? Uh, it's definitely a sweatsuit business. I also see Kelly. Kelly's here. Kelly just in her first week of flight school. Awesome, Kelly. Crush, crush.

Oh.

Oh, I lost you.

No, I'm good.

Okay.

No, I'm wondering about our reception though. How do we look? Because we look horrible on Facebook.

Oh great. Um, is it the lighting? I don't usually—

No, it's like all pixelated and—

Really?

Yeah, it looks horrible on my Facebook.

Let me go on my Facebook and check it out.

Yeah, check, check it out. I don't know. Um, it looks bad. But, um, yeah, anyway, uh, you're exactly right, Mike. I mean, how many We got some weird looks from the neighbors here the last few years, like, does this guy go to work? What's his story?

Yeah, what is going on here?

And then you tell them and they're like, oh, that's interesting. Um, yeah, so, but yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a tracksuit business. That actually looks okay now. Uh, it's a tracksuit business.

This tracksuit's about to come off. It is boiling hot in here.

We're slinging deals in our tracksuits. So if you all aspire to work in a tracksuit, or, you know, even a sleeveless shirt, whatever, whatever you want, you can do this. Good to see you all here. But Mike, before we, before we get on to, you know, our special topics, whatever they may be tonight.

Yeah, I have no idea. So it'd be a surprise to me. I can't wait for the—

Well, I think we're supposed to talk about some land deals that went bad. We can do that. It doesn't happen very often, but we can do that. But I think what we should do for the new viewers, because every once in a while we get a new viewer, I think we should tell people who we are, Mike, what we do, why we're here, other than just being, you know, goofy wearing these trash suits. What's up?

Yeah, so here's the thing. Mark J. Podolsky is the Land Geek, and, you know, he's been investing in this type of land for over you know, 25 years. Essentially, we, we are able to identify areas in the country where we can buy land. I call it the penny stocks of real estate. Like, literally, our purchase price, the acquisition price, is typically $5,000 or less. So these are very, um, not expensive properties, but the cash flow component associated with these properties is crazy. I mean, uh, you know, for a $2,000 property, you can create $200 a month, $3,300, anywhere in that range, right? And the way that we're able to do this is we send out direct mail to people. These are people that typically live out of state. They're not close to the properties, less emotional attachment. And there's a percentage of those people that write back to us that are interested, and we work with them, we buy their properties, and then we can turn around, sell them to people to contract for the Deed. Wow, don't need the hiccups now. Owner financing, essentially small payments, no need to run credit checks, no need to charge interest, real simple. They can afford the payments. We get back our investment within the first 12 months typically. So from there we have years of collections payments that come in. We do this one time, we create a note. Do it multiple times, you have a note portfolio, and that note portfolio can grow, grow, grow. Grow, replace income, even replace the income.

Even exactly.

Yeah.

Awesome. I love it. So for those of you out there who are looking to replace your income, we have 20-year-olds, 30-year-olds, 70-year-olds in this business, looking to replace income, looking to prepare themselves for retirement, looking to have— looking for something to do in retirement. We've had teenagers go through It's a very diverse community. It's very diverse hive mind, Mike Zano.

Oh, you did it on purpose. He knows I get cringe when he says hive mind. I don't know if any of you ever seen the Arrow— I don't think it's called the Green Arrow, is it? It's the Arrow, the TV show. And I think the evil people are like the Hive or something, or something similar to that word. So it always gives me like— but yes, it is a hive mind.

Oh, look at that, we got a shout out together from Brad Kelly. Thank you, Brad. Thank you, Brad. I am curious to know, how do we look on YouTube? Okay, they— Brad, Brad sees us and hears us just fine. Uh, Facebook looks horrible. I don't know what's up with that, but all right, awesome. Well, um, so we gave a nice little overview of the business. I thought, you know, we could do a few things tonight. We could open up for questions. What I thought would be fun, Mike, is like, you know If anybody in the chat has a deal that they're thinking about, like, we could do a would you buy it segment.

Okay.

Right?

Okay.

They could give us the details. We could do a little deal flow analysis in person. That could be fun. So if anybody has a deal out there that you wanna talk about, we could do that live. Love that. We could also, you know, we could talk about old and new. Right? We could talk about 2018 land investing versus land investing today. Yeah, people are spoiled today.

That's, that's a great way to kick things off, don't you think?

I think so. The, the Scott and Mike from 2018 versus the Scott and Mike today.

Well, I mean, a lot of things have changed, and some of you out there have ran into this model by reading Dirt Rich, a great book. And then you'll notice that it was written around that time, 2017-18-ish. And then, you know, a lot of the things he references in the book, you go to look and they're not there. I know that can be a little frustrating, but this is what I would say: the book is a great mindset book. It, you know, I think when you start this business, any business, you might have some fears, some uncertainties and doubts. A good friend of mine called them the FUDs. And, um, you hear Mark work through those fears, those uncertainties, and those doubts. So it's a great, to me, mindset book. But there's some things in there that definitely changed. Like, you'll, you'll hear about, uh, calling the county. Here's what we used to do, right? Call the county. Now, it's not like you just call the county and it's like, hey, Scott picks up and he's like, oh yeah, you look over that list, it's right here. No, it's like, uh, what list you're looking for? So we had this rule of 3 or 4. There was like 3 or 4 people you had to talk to before you would actually encounter the guy. And I always pictured that guy sitting there with the button-up shirt and the tie and eating an apple, you know, and on the computer doing the stuff. He's like, oh, you're looking for this? And so you're like, score, I found David in IT and he's going to send me the list. And then he sends you the list and you open it up and what do you see, Scott?

Gibberish.

Like sometimes, yeah, like literally just— and so we would teach people in our live events, hour-long, sometimes longer sessions, on how to scrub a list. Frankenstein a list. Basically take the data you would get from the county, correlate it with other data from the county, and try to build out a list that you could then mail to. We would even go as far as— if I'm going to offer everybody $1,500 for a property and they had back taxes, we would create an Excel sheet and we'd have a little column for the back taxes, another one for the offer. Then we'd have a little formula. Oh, we were very tricky. We'd have an Excel formula that would show us what the actual offer can be. Fast forward to today, we have software that— we don't own it, but it blends seamlessly Xamplio with our, um, with our LG Pass, our software that we didn't have back then to run the business. Sends out the mailers, tracks the deals, creates the documents. You could go in there and literally in a couple of minutes extract all the data you need to send out a mailer. No need to call the county. And we used to, Scott, right, exclusively focused on tax delinquent properties because highest motivated people. But we realize in the areas where we're buying these properties, there are other people that are motivated. They just happen to be the type of people that pay their taxes. So we were leaving too much proverbial meat on the bone. So we would send out offers now to everyone out of state, and then we just— they get the one offer, no formula needed. They get the $1,500 that they write back, and they have back taxes. It's simply part of the negotiation. Scott, I see you owe $200. I offered you $1,500. No worries, I'll give you $1,300. I'll pay the county $200. We'll be good. So that's just one small example of how things have changed in a relatively short period of time— 8 or 9 years.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and I, I think about due diligence too. So nowadays there's all sorts of— there's all sorts of, uh, due diligence excuse me, vendors, if you will, that you can, you can, you could use these companies online to provide you with a property report for pretty cheap money, $20, $25, $50. You pay certain companies to provide you with a due diligence report. We didn't have that back then. We were doing the due diligence ourselves, every single property.

Right.

We're doing the due diligence ourselves. I mean, the four corner GPS coordinates, Mike, you remember? When's the last time, when's the last time you sat down and did the four corner GPS coordinates? It's been a while.

I don't have to do that. You're right. It just happens. Well, my VAs do it. It's tagged in a system. It's in a workflow. So yeah, yeah, yeah.

But calling the county to get all the zoning information, right? Calling the county to check into back taxes, liens. To do, you know, deed searches are easier to do nowadays than ever, as well as some of these services online and platforms online. And the counties have gotten better as well. The technology, the county technology has gotten better, maybe not in Texas, but everywhere else. Everywhere else, they're pretty good. Pretty good. So yeah, lots have changed. Lots, lots has changed. But I wouldn't say the deal flow has changed. And I wouldn't say the sales have changed.

No, would you? No, no, not at all. You know, I just, uh, went to search something relative to tonight's topic, and as always, I have 1 million tabs open. And yeah, trying to find the tab that has, uh, StreamYard on it. So give me— but I can still— you can still see me and hear me. I just—

I can see you and I can hear you. Yes.

Okay.

Oh my goodness, you hate that when you, when you, when you lose your best buddy. He's just, uh, he's in the ether. In the ether.

Well, here's the thing, I don't really use tabs anymore in a—

I don't know if I even told you this, Scott.

Like, so, you know, you know, I'm a big, uh, you know, I love softwares and backpacks and things of that nature.

Oh yeah.

So, and I know you have one similar for tab grouping. I have one I've been using called Wavebox. It's pretty awesome. Okay, Wavebox is very similar. What's the one you use, Scott, where it groups your tabs together? Um, I forget the name of it.

Um, well, it doesn't necessarily group your tabs together, it allows you to be logged into multiple Yeah, this does that as well.

Okay. I'm on Shift. I like Shift. Yes. Laura likes that. But Wavebox has been great to me. But then I also use Cowork, which is like— people out there know that's an AI-type program from Claude. And it's always working in my browsers, not me. So consequently, it opens up a bazillion browsers. There's all these things happening. And so anyway, I got to find you guys. That's all I'm saying.

Why don't you— okay, go to Cowork and say, where's my buddy? Where's my best friend?

But I had to do that last week. You're right. 100%. Okay, I'll find it. But anyway, let's continue.

No, it's all right. Uh, we digress. Lots of the technology has changed in the business. Uh, the deals have not. Uh, the, the response rates have not. The acceptance rates. The, the pricing, uh, is obviously inflated compared to what it used to be, but the margins— the margins, the margins, the margins are the same, right?

Yes.

Um, and, uh, so it's exciting because the, the, the deal flow hasn't changed, the sales haven't changed, uh, and, you know, we're, we're moving forward with, with, uh, velocity even, even still.

Oh, I like, uh, such a good word.

Yeah. So, so again, if anybody has a deal for us to review, give us a deep one in the chat. Yeah, I think we should do this. Uh, Jeff Evenson, my my land investing brother from another mother here in Wisconsin. Good to see you, sir. So he has a— I, and I love this, Mike, about our community. We're very transparent. We're not afraid to share details about our deals, right? Because there's just so much land out there, right? Uh, Apache County. Mike, ever done a deal in Apache County?

Yeah, Apache County is actually ironically where I paid off my $50,000 of debt in year 1 in the land investing business. So I've done a ton of deals in Apache County.

And I'm sure you've done deals in the 207, right?

So I guess I could throw out a cool little trick that I like to use when I'm researching. And, um, please do. So if you take the digits that, you know, this is great for, um, Apache County because usually there's a string of— is it, uh, 323 digits?

Is that 323?

Yeah, yeah, 323. So take the 3, the dash, the 2, dash, and leave nothing at the end there. Don't put the final ones in there. And then say land for sale, Apache County, Arizona. You could put the acreage, you don't have to. And then search that and you watch what happens.

Yeah, you just do that in Google, Mike.

Yeah, right in Google.

Yeah, I could do that.

Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry.

No, I was gonna say you can fill— I mean, you're filtering, right? Uh, but, but you can filter on land sites You know, that's a great technique.

Similar properties that initially gives you a quick, quick look at similar properties is what it does.

You can Google the name of the subdivision, right? And see where current listings are, former listings are. Jeff Unison says, say that again. So Jeff, just go to Google and type in Apache County 207-46 Dash land for sale and see what listings come up. Uh, it's a good way to maybe do a little bit of county research. It's a good way to see what other land investors are writing about that area, right? Uh, ad hacking is what I call it. Now disclaimer, ad hacking does not mean you steal the ad. Ad hacking means you're analyzing the ads of other land investors to learn about that area.

Yes.

But you always have to trust and verify that the information that's in the land investors ad matches what's going on with the county and what the county's restrictions are. Right. So anyway, those are good ways to learn about the areas and the deals. But, but Jeff, so if I do so, so Mike, can you do that? I'm going to tell you, go to Google.

Yes, thank you.

Type in Apache County 207-46 and like 1.14 acres, 1 acre. See what you're coming up with for, uh, land listings for sale.

All right, here we go.

While you're doing that, I, I'm gonna have a refill segment. Remember this?

Oh, the refill was amazing.

We used to have a guy, we used to have a refill segment guy, Matt Forbes. Yes, we brought him in just for the refill and then we kicked him out. He was here for like 30 seconds. It was funny stuff, funny stuff. All right, what are you finding, Mike?

I'm finding—

finding a listing.

Oh yeah, I am.

What's the listing price?

Let's see. This is a 1.36-acre. Let's see what's going on here. Let's see this one. I know, I know the date of this listing, so that's, that's the other thing you gotta check, is, you know, what land does appreciate in value. But, uh, $500 down, 40 monthly payments of $150. So if you add it up, that's $6,500. That's one person who has a 1.36-acre. What was the size of this one?

Yeah, 1.14.

Yeah, very similar, very similar. So there's one right there. So we have one. What's this person who posted it and what are they looking to?

He's just wondering, is he gonna— is number one, is he gonna sell it? But I think we should kind of look at his pricing too. So he's gonna sell it for $249 dock fee. Love that. Why do we have a dock fee? The dock fee is to recoup costs.

Yes.

It's also to show that, you know, it also shows us that the buyer is serious. If they pay the doc fee, they're serious buyer. And he's gonna sell it for $149 a month for 60 months.

Yeah, well, there's one right here exactly on Craigslist, cash price $844,900, owner financing exactly like you just said, $149 down, $149 a month for 60 months, documentation fee $249.

Yeah, and I see another one in a similar area for similar pricing here on a land selling website that many of us use called Landmoto. So Jeff, I like your pricing. Uh, I like the fact that, uh, in this area you can live or camp. Yeah, there we go. Um, manufactured homes are allowed. So yeah, I think it all looks good. I think, Mike, what's important is that we buy these things on a discount, right? And there's not much we don't buy as long as we can find data that land is being bought and sold in this area.

Yes.

And we're finding— we're already finding data. We're just— we're at the tip of the iceberg here. We're already finding things in the market that suggest that land deals are being done here, which is good. But also, uh, we want to make sure that—

that was his ad. He put— that's my credit. I was kind of looking at it and I was like, I think that's the same exact number. But I found you. Yes, you are published in Rollin', Jeff.

Yeah, publish and rollin'. But anyway, your pricing is aligned with what we're seeing, which is good. And if we look at the pricing, I'm not sure where you paid for this, Jeff, but I have a feeling that you're gonna make your money back. Well, Jeff, just put, did you buy this through your mailing or did you buy this wholesale?

Yeah.

But either way, if you buy it through your mailing and sell it at this price, you're gonna have a killer yield. If you buy it wholesale and sell it at this price, you're gonna have a decent yield. And we're gonna make some pretty killer returns on this.

I like this. There's some other ones in there.

Oh, by the way, this is what I was gonna say. As long as we can find data that land is being bought and sold in an area. And as long as we can buy it at 25, 35 cents on the dollar, there's not much we don't buy.

Right?

For me, as long as it has road access, and some usability, right? Like, I need to be able to use the property for something. I'd say the properties that you can live on and camp on, they sell faster than the properties you can just camp on or just live on. But, you know, Jeff, if you're in an area like that, I have a feeling that you got it at a good price. And that's a great monthly affordable payment for a buyer. And you will sell it because they all sell. You need a lot of leads though, right?

Yes.

Oh, I love this. You're in deep research. Did you find me yet, Mike? You look like—

no, I'm looking up another one that somebody was just posting.

Oh, okay. Let's, let's do that here in a second. But first, define road access.

Well, you know, there's legal access and actual access, and I'm comfortable with that, uh, with legal access. I'd love to have actual access, but sometimes these are remote. As long as it's something that's platted out, I feel comfortable. A lot of times, you know, in these remote areas you may not have the, you know, well-defined road, but it is platted and legal, and that's number one most important.

Yeah, and I think there's even further differences, right? Like, you can have, you can have what we call a paper road where on the zoning map you can actually see a road on the, on the plat map, but when you look at images there's actually no road there, right? But there's a paper road, so there's definitely legal access. But then there are other areas that don't have roads at all, but they have perimeter easements, right? Where you can access the property via the perimeter of the property. But if there are no roads, Mike, are you buying that thing?

You're saying there's legal access but no actual roads?

Yeah, there's just perimeter access around the perimeters of the property.

That depends on how great the deal is because they all do sell 100%. You know, I've sold many, many properties like that. But I think it's, you know, I'm going to factor that into the offer for sure. And I'll, you know, we'll use that in my negotiation tactics as well.

Yeah, so what we might say to the seller is, hey, Mr. Seller, not, not sure— we're definitely interested in purchasing from you. Not sure if you knew or not, but there's actually no road to the property. There is an easement to the property, but whoever wants to go out there, they're going to have to be like an adventurer. They're going to need a four-wheel drive or maybe even an off-road vehicle or maybe even like a helicopter to get there.

Yeah.

So I know my original offer to you was this. I'm not able to do it at that on this deal, but would you be opposed to this number? Right? Yeah. And you bring them down even further.

Yeah. You know, if there's a defined easement, I've been found— I You know, um, we just sold the property together in Arizona, um, a little bit higher price, but access was via an easement. So, and that's not a problem as long as there is access. Easement means that, you know, in layman's terms, because someone's asking, it's like the access might be over another property, but there's a defined way to get there that's legally like defined on the deed or something. There's a way that you know you can get to the property.

There's utility easements and there's easements that are always accessible.

Yeah, you have to be careful.

Yeah, but you just got to look into it. Yeah, do your due diligence. Right.

But low-lying fruit in our business is always we have the owner or owners, they have owned it for a number of years. They're all alive and able to sign away the property. There's actual access to the property. I mean, these are— this is the low-lying fruit that we're seeking.

Yeah, awesome. All right, well, let's do Brad Kelly's deal review then. So he's got, he's got an Apache Arizona property in the 207 area, 1.09 acres.

Uh, now when you say 2250, Brad, does that mean you can— what are you saying by that? Because it's $52,500.

I'm saying maybe that's his acquisition price.

Was he land arbitring it from somebody or to somebody? Brad, fill us in on this.

Oh yeah, what is the $105 a month what you're paying?

And what's this 250 compared to the 5250? Because I think what I'm seeing is comps that do, uh, support this, you know, this, this, uh, sale price. But I want to just hear a little bit more, get some more clarity.

Yeah, that's his purchase price. So which one? That's—

so if his purchase price is $22,500, so he's land averaging to somebody else, or he wants to land out?

Uh, that's a good question, Brad. Are you landerbing it to somebody else? No, these are the lander terms from the seller. So let's go back up and look at this. Okay, where'd it go?

Because I'm seeing right now, um, on Land Moto, a lot listed for $280,000 down, Scott, total price $5,600-ish. $280,000 down, $148,000 a month for 36 months.

So Brad, the $105,000— is the $105,000 the principal amount, or does that include monthly prorated taxes? Does that include a monthly note fee at all? Uh, is the $105,000 principal would be my first question.

Yeah, I think he's close. And here's the thing, land is inefficient. Like, you could sell it for this price and I could sell it for, you know, zero down, $200 a month. I mean, it's just so many people. It's only the deal that you strike within reason with the person buying from you. So there's so much variety. And I've seen when people say, what do you mean by land being inefficient? It means that, well, I live in a cul-de-sac, maybe every house is like $800,000. You're not going to pick one up for $500,000. It's just not going to happen. Like, very, very, very, very, very unlikely. But in land, you could have a plot of land selling for $5,000 cash, $8,000 on terms, $149 a month, $250 a month, depending on different terms. Like, there's so much inefficiency because people— it's not the same type of research that people can conduct as typical MLS and Zillow.

All right, but, um, I'm still— I'm still confused about the $2,250 retail. Yeah, what is that? If the retail is $5,250, Brad, and you're buying it for $105 a month for 48 months plus $200 down, you're buying it for $5,440, right?

Yeah.

Over time.

Yeah.

So, so I think what I would say about this deal is that maybe I would want the principal to be a little bit lower. But Brad, if you can sell it right away for $150 a month, right, your returns are going to be crazy.

Yeah, that's the thing with land, uh, you know, you don't look at all that, you just look at the monthly spread that you're making, and that's what's most important. And if you're making— if you made one payment of, uh, $105 and then you sell for like $160 a month and you're making $55 a month profit and you've only invested $105, like, that is crazy return. That's the whole principle of land arbitrage.

Exactly. And by the time you're done with your 48-month note, Brad, paying the other land investor, the land will also have appreciated. Just something else to consider.

Right.

So I think the numbers are okay on that one. I think if you could sell it for $150 a month, $160 a month, you know, as Mike said, you're gonna make the spread and it's gonna be a killer deal for you. Sorry about my dog barking in the background. I know the capabilities on StreamYard are not the best. Awesome. Let's see what else we got here. It's a hodgepodge, a potpourri tonight, the Q&A potpourri with Mike and Scott. Here we go. Jared Russell, good to see you. Just received an offer letter back from a potential seller today. Ooh, he offered $25,000 for 20 acres in Mojave County, Arizona. That's what my research says is retail price for that. I'm still not confident. Confident in offering lower— Mike, you're— this is good for you, you're good at this. I'm so confident in offering lower prices when I talk to people. Any tips on how to get over that? Yeah, so 20 acres for $25,000, Mike, that's what the buyer wants.

So sometimes, like, that's just it, you have an unreasonable seller or they're just not looking to sell it, they don't have a lot of urgency, so they're going to ask for full value. Not much you could do that. But what I would always do when I'm talking to people and I train the team is You know, it's like, hey, um, when I sense— because we typically were sending people what we will call a, um, a blind offer, an actual offer amount, right? Not a neutral, you know, hey, this is what I— I'd like to talk to you about your property, and you don't have a real number attached. But we're attaching real numbers to try and weed out people. So I would ask, what did you— did you send him, Jared, an actual offer, or how did— was it a neutral letter, meaning you didn't give him an actual price? I'd be curious about that initially. And when it comes to discussing, when breaking people down and pricing, I always would say, hey, listen, obviously there's a number that's going to work for you, there's a number that's going to work for me, and sometimes it works out well that we're in agreement, sometimes not. I just appreciate the opportunity to look at your property. And, um, you know, when I come back with the offer, you can either do one of three things. You can say, yeah, that's great, No way, or counter me. And I'm okay with any of those. I'm just— I just appreciate the opportunity. So I would soften it so that there was never going to be— when I come back with a low number, it's not like they weren't prepared for it. Another tactic you could say is, um, listen, because this is great, if you offered someone $2,000, you look at the property and like, you know, I'd really like to get it for $1,500, I would say, Scott, you know, I, I I just want to let you know, I know I offered you $2,000, but subsequent to sending you that letter, I've gotten to know the area a little bit better. And, you know, um, I'm gonna do my best to work with you, and I'm not sure how attached you are to the property, but I don't really want to insult you with what I could really pay for it. And then you hold your breath, you drink water, you say nothing, because in that moment, as if you were playing cards with them or poker, they flip their cards over and they show you. They're either going to say You told me you were gonna get— oh, that's right, Mr. Seller, don't worry, I'm gonna do my best. So they might say— and this has happened more often than you would believe, and it'll happen to you if you do this— they'll say, I just want to get rid of it, Mike, I, I don't even— great, because I was, you know, I can really give you $1,400, right? Boom, done deal. So that's a great tactic as well. So what do you say? I did actually had the incorrect acreage on the original. My offer, $26 100. My error. They corrected the offer letter and came back with $25K. Okay, gotcha, gotcha. Um, well, offer 20— my error. So you offered lower for the area than you should have? Is that what they're saying, Scott?

Yeah, that's what he's saying.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, that happens. Um, no worries. You know, we have lots of people that reach out to us. Some work, some don't, but that's why we're volume mailers.

Yeah, and you know what, this, this is, uh, this is a good way, I think, in my opinion, to push yourself outside your comfort zone a little bit, to pick up the phone and call this person when maybe you're feeling nervous to do so. Because if you can do that a few times, you're going to get over that fear. You're going to get— you're going to be— you're going to be more comfortable with stepping into that discomfort in the future on future conversations.

Right.

And man, I tell you what, if you put yourself through the reps and you have a few more conversations like that that are a little bit uncomfortable, you're going to get more comfortable and you're going to be able to breathe better on the calls. You're going to be able to think better on the calls. You're going to be able to, you know, ask more questions to the seller.

Yeah.

Get to know them. If you'd be surprised what happens if you just get on the phone with somebody and start asking them questions. You connect with them. And by the time you know it, half hour's gone by, and they get to like you. And you may have brought them down $15K on the price.

Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And to ask questions about, you know, about the land. Hey, just curious, have you ever been out there? Well, I was out there 40 years ago. Oh, okay. What can you tell me about it? Well, not much. Oh, okay. Do you have any pictures or anything of the property? No. Right? All of these things are going to help you in your negotiations when you can say to the person, well, you know what? I've actually, you know, I've done my research on the area. People are, land investors are buying these properties at this amount. I know your amount is this, but would you be opposed to meeting me at this price? See what they say. Worst they can do is say no.

Yeah.

Right?

Just get comfortable being yourself. Like this is not where you're trying to be something you're not. You literally, um, just like you're having a conversation with somebody you've known for a while. You don't have to pretend to be anything else. And just like, this is it, you know, I, I'd really like to work with you on your property. And you obviously typically have an offer number. Sometimes there are mistakes like we're talking about here, but reality is that, um, everything's negotiable and you shouldn't be afraid to say, hey, listen, I know I offered you this much, but I've done a little bit deeper dive and I really can't overpay for this property and I don't want to insult you with what I really could. And then just hold your breath. Let them come back and say— they might come back many, many times. People say, you know what, I'm just— I'm really kind of done with the property. I just want to get something reasonable for it.

Love it. Yeah, Brad, he's always looking to double his landlord payments. So if he pays $100 a month, he wants to collect $200 a month. Maybe you should look at the total return. I would agree. I think that, you know, I think what matters is how fast you move it. And Brad, if you're paying $100 a month and you sell it right away for $165 a month, your rate of return is infinite.

Yeah.

And then you move on to the next deal. So, and I would also price it in a way that's comparative to other properties that you're seeing in the marketplace. Price it in a way that's competitive. Because if they— if the marketplace sees most land investors selling these for $150 a month and you're charging $200 a month, they may look at the other land investors first. So just—

you said something really important, Scott, is like, you know, sell it and move on to the next one. Here's the thing, we're not making our whole business on one deal. We're looking to continually create cash flow. $60 here, $100 here, $200 there, $350 here, $50 here. It's these river of nickels that Mark talks about that add up. So as long as you're, you know, getting a decent return for the investment you put out there, then you just sell it and move on. Don't try to hold out for what you would consider top dollar, you know. Get the cash flow going.

It compounds, man.

It compounds.

It compounds. You know what's good at compounding? He's here tonight. We gotta have him on. We're gonna dedicate a whole episode to him. Matt Nunn is here.

I see him there. What up, Matt?

He's the— I wonder if he has a nickname yet.

Maybe he should be giving Matt a nickname yet.

Maybe he should be the Compounder.

The Compounder, good one. I like that.

Uh, yeah, we're gonna have you on soon, Matt. Uh, for sure. Um, but glad to see you here. Uh, and, and Matt is all about momentum. I— some of Matt's emails are the best. Matt, I don't know if you knew or not, but I'm on your email list and I see him and I'm like, that guy, guys know what he's— knows what he's doing.

I spy on him. I was watching some YouTube videos today. He's really— oh nice, Matt, you're really good. You're really, really good.

Very cool. Uh, let's see what else we got here. Do, do, do, do, do. Oh, what's this? Bo, what's up? I do what I call traditional vacant land flips. I use sell-through rate and seems like a higher price point. Can you go through filters that are more relevant to your method?

Hmm.

Interesting. Well, yeah, I mean, I think our— if you might be doing higher price point land flips, for sure. Our method, I think the biggest thing that sets maybe our method apart from others is we're big on owner financing. We love to owner finance land for $100 a month, $200, $300 a month. And that doesn't sound like a lot, but we have people in our community, Beau, who have hundreds of properties paying them every month. And that's the power of this business, I think. When you can collect a portfolio of properties that pay you every month and you know what's coming in every month, and you're not having to wait for the next big cash flip or the cash sale, But that money, it's mailbox money, it's coming in. Now, 10% of the time you're going to have defaults, which we don't mind because 10% of the time the properties keep paying us over time. We take the property back and we turn around and sell it again. So that's probably the biggest difference. And like Mike was saying earlier on the call, we're kind of in the penny stocks of land investing. We're buying these properties for between $1,000 and $5,000 typically and flipping them that way. So hopefully that helps.

Yeah.

Well, this is fun, Mike. Uh, what else? What else?

We've already chewed up 45 minutes just wrapping with questions. I love it. You know, just here we go.

Who's got a win? Who's got a land win for the week? Yeah, throw that in the chat. Oh, here's a segment we used to do, Mike. I know I'm coming to you for this one because you were, you're actually talking to me about this really great book that you think that I should read. You were surprised that I hadn't read it yet, actually. So it's the Book of the Week segment.

Oh, Book of the Week. Yes, yes. Yeah, um, and I, I, oh, I apologize. Um, he just went into flight school who told me, recommended the book to me. I will think of the name. I, I'm having a senior moment here, but the book The book is called Traction, and I started reading. It's phenomenal.

Oh, who's the buyer?

I'll have to look up the author. I don't have the book right— wait a minute, I do. It's right there. Gino Wickman.

Oh, Gino Wickman. And I gotta hold that thing up.

I gotta find who recommended it.

I feel that thing up. Oh, that looks good.

I'm having a—

sorry, moment. All right, okay. So Mike, so why, why, why do we need to read this book? Tell us.

Well, I'm only at the very beginning, but I think it's just, you know, it's really just great for our business or any business. Basically talks about what they call the entrepreneurial operating system, the EOS, and it's just a, you know, it's a list of different components that they use to analyze. And I just think anything like this, you know, these type of books it just, you know, it just fit right into our niche, right? We know we're entrepreneurs, we're building businesses. These are key principles we need to focus on. No different than Fix This Next, Real Estate Investors by Scott Todd. If you're in flight school, this is the guy who's teaching you. He has a book he's released, so I would recommend this one as well. Um, and I think that these probably go hand in hand in terms of what they, you know, help you develop, for sure.

Love it, love it. Uh, I'm reading a book right now. Um, I'm reading Infinite Jest, which is crazy, but I'm also reading Infinite Jest—

pause— what's this? Is this fiction?

Yeah, it's fiction. Mark's reading it and I'm reading it too.

Oh, you got the secret book club, you and Mark? I didn't know there was a secret book club. Cheapest.

I didn't want to make you jealous.

I'm gonna look it up. Infinite Jest.

Uh, it's like 1,200 pages long. It's craziness, but it's very, very technical, very difficult reading. But Mike, I thought of you when I read— when I'm re— I'm reading another book right now as well. It's called, uh, Breathe by James Nestor.

Oh, I've read that. Yes.

Oh, it's very good. It's got me captivated. I'm breathing completely differently every morning.

Every morning, you know, I get up, I do— it's basically bloody— about— they probably know Wim Hof. I do a version of that every morning, holding my breath for 3 or 4 minutes. I was telling my friend last night, he's looking at me like, what? Why would you do that? I'm like, because it feels great and it centers you. You know what I love about it? For those of you out there who do any type of meditation, typically what happens when you first sit down to clear your head— and nothing fancy, just counting breaths or something— you have this like, oh, you had an itch here, a thought here, and you're kind of in this unsettled state. But then what happens after whatever period of time it takes you, you get better as time goes on, you settle in. I say welcome to the now. You enter the present moment and there you are, and you could just sit there in this contemplative state or this present state, and you don't feel like you have to move. It's great. It's such a— it's such an incredible feeling. The deep breathing like Wim Hof, when you do the breath holds, it puts you there instantly. Once you get done, you're like in that spot. So I I can't recommend it enough.

Yeah. The book is really, really, really interesting and it gives you a whole new perspective on breathing and why, like as modern humans, we've lost the ability to breathe correctly.

I like Ryan Moore's comment, the old man noises when reaching for it.

Haha. Yeah, I know. I didn't want to pass out reaching for that book, Ryan.

Thanks for pointing that out.

I was going to comment on that too, actually. Oh man. That's good stuff. Oh my God. All right, well, what else we got tonight here, folks? Uh, any, any wins to celebrate? Mike, uh, we got a Fourth of July promo. We sold a few properties. Yeah, anybody have a Fourth of July deal go on? Uh, The Land Investor's Playbook by Travis King, have not read that one, but that's, that's probably a good one to read. Sure, for sure. Uh, anybody else here? Oh, listen here, from Jeff, that's a good one. Any suggestions on how to rekindle a conversation with a somewhat cold Facebook lead?

All right, rekindle a conversation. Yeah, definitely. You go in there because, um, you just go in and you, and you just off say, listen, just like a deal of the week that you would run on your, um, in your buyers list, you can do a deal of the week or, or a deal of the moment inside Facebook. Hey, just let you know We're running a special on this property that you are interested in. Half off the dock fee, half off the down payment, whatever it might be. That's a great way to rekindle it.

Yeah, I think, um, it's a good idea to just go back through your leads every now and then, right? Like, uh, because you don't know why they went cold. Maybe they went cold because they don't like you. No, just kidding. Maybe they went cold because something in life is going on and they weren't able to get back to you. And maybe they weren't necessarily looking for land at the time, but your ad caught their eye and they're like, yeah, you know what, land actually would be a good investment. But then for whatever reason, life gets in the way and they kind of forget about it.

Right.

So it's a good idea to just, you know, reping them every now and then without being obnoxious. And also just say, you know, hey, I know you were just in this before. Not sure if you still are. But I may have more opportunities coming in that area. Would you be opposed to providing your email address and I can keep you on my buyers list? Right, right. Another tool that we like to use is the video tool. So if you're comfortable taking a video on your phone, you know, if it's a buyer who had some genuine interest in the property and want to rekindle that relationship, take a little video of yourself chatting about the property. Put a face to the name, right? They can see that you're authentic and real.

You keep saying you're not a bot. I keep saying Kindle, I keep thinking of Laura. I call her Binky. She reads that Kindle all day long. It's like she's attached to this Kindle. So every time you say Kindle, I'm thinking if she— she also likes to read a lot with her Kindle.

Yeah, I actually get her reading recommendations, uh, in my email. Quite interesting.

Quite interesting with that.

I'm— this one's kind of— it's kind of funny actually. Mike and I are friends on Goodreads, but Laura uses Mike's account.

Yeah.

So every once in a while I get an email that says, Mike, is this a new— I read this book. I'm like, how is this book, buddy? That's funny. Oh, anyway, we love you, Laura. Um, yeah, here we go. Some of my best deals have been in the follow-up. The follow-up or the— I don't know, what do you call it— the roundup? The—

yeah, you just, you know, sometimes take so many touches. Traditional, you know, sales will say it takes so many touches to get— but you got to reach out to these people, re-engage. That's why Follow Up Boss can have sequences built into them. That's why the buyers list is important. You're constantly— these people may not buy now, but they certainly have a high probability of buying later.

And you know who it's a good idea to rekindle relationships with also is the people who've already bought from you.

Absolutely right.

Don't forget to call them up and say, hey, I have another property right down the road from you, right? Right. A lot of sales that way for sure. So awesome. Wait, I concur. Oh, you concur?

Did you see the cup I had tonight?

Oh, look at that.

We should have swag for our viewers. Like, I don't know how we're gonna do that. Uh, maybe the Dirt Ridge Summit, we can get some of these.

I can smuggle some t-shirts in. What do you think of that?

Anybody out there listening right now in the comments, are you going to the Dirt Ridge Summit? Because You know, we'd love to see you all there and meet in person. I think it's a great event to network and meet friends that become lifelong accountability partners. It's just a great event. Who's going?

Let's go to the Dirt Rich Summit, October 1st through the 3rd.

Ryan Moore, I hope I see you there.

Jeff Evenson is going.

All right.

Awesome.

All right, Ryan. Jeff. All right. We'd be happy to see you there. I'm sure Matt Nunn will be there, right, Matt? Did we already ask him? Was it— I don't know, did we already ask him? And he—

I hope he's gonna be there.

I hope Matt Nunn's gonna be there. It's actually coming up pretty quick.

Yeah, it's only 3 months away now, which is crazy.

I know, uh, basically Christmas already.

Well, I think that for old times' sake because it used to be 2 and now it's 4. Wait, where is it?

We got—

we should do one of our old-time segments.

All right, what do you got? What do you got?

All right, you ready?

Yeah.

So this, this was a segment you did every week for a long time. It brought, uh, quite a bit of, uh, giggles to the show.

So I, I know.

So, uh, so tonight, tonight we're gonna do the Boston Leggett segment.

All right, all right.

So the Boston Lega segment is a very special segment where Scott spells a word and Mike— Scott spells a word in the correct English language, right? And Mike pronounces the word in his Bostonian accent.

Correctly. Correctly. Test, test, test.

Yes, test, test, test. You can lean into your mic on this one. All right. And, you know, it's summertime, so I thought I'd throw this word out there. You ready?

Yeah.

G-A-R-D-E-N. Garden? Garden, yeah. Yeah, it's a garden.

The tomatoes in the garden are gonna be here soon. They're getting ready to come out.

Oh man alive. Who says it that way? Garden.

Everybody.

It's like, yeah. I mean, like when you say the ABCs.

Yeah.

Say the word that, say the letter that comes after S. Before us. Ah, I mean, come on, man.

It's ARR. Is that— I mean, we put a little A in front of it. Listen, it's just, it's just the right way to do it.

Yeah, it's the right way to do it. Uh, Brad Kelly wants you to say SATURN.

Satin? What's he saying?

S-A-T-U-R-N.

It's Saturn.

Saturn? Yeah, it's a Saturn. Saturn, the planet Saturn?

Yeah, Saturn.

How do you say it?

Saturn.

Oh, come on, man.

Oh my God, Saturn. Who says that?

Saturn? No, I don't say— I don't say Saturn, I say Saturn.

Saturn, the rings around it, right? Saturn.

Oh my God. All right, one last tip of the week. Have you seen Project Hail Mary yet, Mike?

I loved Project Hail Mary. Although, all right, I watched another one, an oldie but goodie, for the, um, uh, a second time or so. And also Everything Everywhere All at Once is a phenomenal movie.

Oh yeah, that's a good show.

Phenomenal movie.

Good show. Good show. All right, man. Well, this was fun.

Thanks for being here. You all made it. Thank you for coming. Uh, you know, um, this business works if you work it, so stay consistent.

And that— and that's, uh, that's why we're still here today. We've been consistent with it. That's just it. We're nothing special. We're two regular guys.

And, um, that reminds me, you know, we are Life's Gettin' Couple Wild and Crazy Guys.

Yeah. But we continue to do what Mark taught us to do a decade ago. I mean, we're still slinging deals, right? You just talked today. But, you know, we're kind of on a buying spree right now. And, and I will say year 11 is a lot different than year 1. But if you just stick around, like, the deals are gonna be different for you too. Like, you're gonna get to the point where 11, 12 years down the road, you're gonna be like, I just spent $30,000 today on property.

I know, I've spent—

it's crazy—

crazy amount of money on property lately that I would— my former self would be like, first of all, you don't have that money. But I do now. But it's just—

yeah, yeah. Sometimes I go to the mailbox and I'm like putting checks out in the mail, like, I actually just put that amount of money out in the mailbox. Like, my 2015 self would be freaking out right now.

I know, don't even think twice.

So stick with it. Stick with it because life in 10 years is completely different.

Yeah.

All right, all right, guys, good to see you all. Uh, next week John will be back. I think, uh, next week we're gonna start doing this, uh, we're gonna start doing this annually. So because things change so fast, so next week we're doing the Anatomy of a Land Deal 2026 Edition. We did it last year and it was a hit. We share it with a lot of people when they're learning about the business. But next week we're talking about the Anatomy of a Land Deal 2026 version. Things have changed even a little bit from a year ago. So I think I would just recommend everybody, if you're new to this, come to that because there's going to be a lot of good nuts and bolts information. We're not hiding anything. And if you know anybody in your life who might benefit from this, bring them along. Yeah, because Yeah, we have like, you know, we need more viewers.

I was just looking at Jeff. Jeff, I say satin, satin, satin, satin. It's very similar. But you know, beer, you drink a beer, you, you see a bear in the woods.

Yeah, they're the same.

It's the same word.

A bear. Oh my God, I gotta go. I can't handle this anymore.

Beer.

All right. I'm having a beer tonight. All right, says beer. Okay guys, everybody have a good night. We'll talk soon. Bye-bye.

Take it, guys.