The Land Geek Podcast #29

Welcome to the Land Geek podcast, your resource for information and tips to making money by buying and selling land. Let the Land Geek show you how to make a passive income by working smart, not working hard. Learn strategies and tricks to make money buying and selling raw land today. And here is the man that's gonna help you do that. The Land Geek.

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the Land Geek here. And this week I am of course able to secure the very hard to reach Duran Frazier from the land hub.com is it landhub.com or the landhub.com?

Come on, dude, I would never ever buy a domain like land.

The landhub.com landhub.com reserveland.com Duran Living the life, the dream. Off the beach. Carlsbad. How are you?

I'm doing excellent, thanks for asking, Mark. How about yourself?

Pulse is still normal, respiration's fine. I'm starting. You know what? I'm starting to drink these, these, these mid afternoon coffees. What do you think of that?

I just had one myself.

Did you? Do you feel good?

Dude, I shouldn't be drinking any coffee at all. In fact, my friend at lunch just, he kind of made me realize that why would I ever want to drink coffee when I have more energy than and the Energizer Bunny?

The only reason I'm drinking coffee right now is to get through this podcast. Otherwise I'd be meditating. This is, this is my meditation time.

Yeah, no, I'm. Water's my, my thing.

It's good. That's good. Yeah. Look at you. Drinking the smart water doesn't help me, obviously. Well, let's. That's debatable. So, speaking of smart, we're going to talk about how Duran is so smart and is able to buy land and then make that land into something more valuable. Right? So let's give an example. Duran buys 640 acres in Nevada. That land I might just cut up into 40 acres and sell. Not Duran. Duran says, hey, let's call the local, you know, solar companies and see if we can make it a solar farm. I know, why don't we see if we can mine it? I know, why don't we see if we can get a geothermal company out here? So he creates these projects on his land that potentially, instead of me making, let's say, hundreds of thousands of dollars on the property, he makes potentially millions of dollars.

That's the key term is potentially.

Potentially. So what's going on with you? How do you do these deals? How do you find these Deals. What makes you say, yeah, I can make a million dollars here?

Well, let's start off, Mark, by saying that the reason why you and I got in business together was because we sort of, as a collective group, thought outside the box. We were. Obviously, when everybody was buying, you know, tax auction property, you and I decided, let's take it a step further and actually cut this land up ourselves, which people thought we were absurd and crazy. And, I mean, the idea was. Didn't seem to have much merit until we actually did a little research and found out that it didn't cost a whole lot of money to subdivide the land. So Mark and I. Mark and I decided to start small. We took down our first 20. What, 2500 acres together, Mark?

Yeah, we did. We did a test takedown to see how it would go.

So we took down our first 2,500 acres. I don't know if it was 2500 each. We negotiated a great deal, and the market started picking up. It was a good time for us. We got into the market when it was. Our ROI was pretty good, but it wasn't anything spectacular. And then as we sort of got into our massive purchase, the market just took off. And that happened. Literally. The timing was perfect, but at the same time, we were sort of always in our brains going, okay, how we have to stay a step ahead of the game. And so we bought what we thought were the best parcels, which we. I mean, to this day, I still believe we took down some of the best properties in this large portfolio of land.

Right. Well, you know, you know, we were smart. You know what I mean? Because we went to the local expert, our surveyor, and he handpicked our sections. Correct. Versus just looking, you know, going out there with the seller or, you know, a broker that may not have had our best interest not know the area as well as our surveyor did.

Correct. Correct. And so, you know, you and I, obviously, we took down, I think it was right around 40,000 acres together. And. And then a second acquisition that I made of another 10,000 acres without you, which is about a year and a half later. And. And my second acquisition was very interesting because my second acquisition happened to be with. When I looked at a map and I looked at what was around, I generally want to see. I mean, it's not hard to take down land that you think has residential development potential in the near future. And in this area, I knew there was a lot of mining going on and never did I really think my property would be mineable if that's even a word. But I did think of potentially alternative energy. I knew there was a couple of projects in the area. There was a geothermal plant to the north, and there's a couple of geothermal wells that were drilled in the town of Crescent Valley. So I literally bought, you know, 5,000 acres in this little town of Crescent Valley, most of the private land. And it was, you know, just on the. I would say on the south southwestern portion of the valley, which is pretty much in town off the highway. And. And so the idea was to go out and sort of, you know, see what was there and see what I could potentially, you know, how I can make this property, take it to its highest and best use. So what I did is I went and researched from mining to solar to geothermal, and I sat on some stuff for a while, didn't make any big moves. And then we went to solar first, which we still have a nice project down there, which we're actually working on a deal as we speak.

Yeah, yeah. So what's going on with that deal? How long have you been working that deal and what phase is it in right now?

Okay, so the solar one's very. Are you talking about the solar one?

The solar one, not the mining one?

Okay, so the solar one. We've been in and out of a couple of option deals for the past four, I'd say, three or four years. And the hardest thing with solar is it's the entire project hinges on whether or not you can obtain what's called a power purchase agreement, or ppa. And in solar, that basically your golden ticket. The minute you have a ppa, which is a deal with the energy company to buy energy at a certain price, everything else, sort of a moot point because it's sort of a percentage game. Right. If the numbers on paper make sense, you know, you're going to have someone buy the project.

Right. But you know, what's interesting about that? Let me just, you know, jump in here, is you had no energy. You have no energy background, correct?

None.

So how did you even, you know, learn about this stuff? Like, it's like you don't know what you don't know who filled in that. That gap for you? Did you hire a consultant or what did you do?

You know, it's actually really interesting. I did. I mean, I do a lot of research. For me, if I don't know about something, I want to learn about it. So I'll spend time, I'll set up meetings with people. You know, I'll find a mentor in Every. In every different industry possible, just so I can learn. So if there's somebody I feel like that can help me better understand what I'm trying to accomplish, I'll go meet with them. And we've talked about it. You know, we've had a couple podcasts where we've talked about getting. Getting through to somebody. But, I mean, most of these guys weren't people that would say no. You know, they were. Most of them were pretty nice people that would sit down with you and chat for 30 minutes because they felt like it was potential. They could work with you on the project.

Right.

So I would bring this project to a handful of people, and I would just pick their brains and talk to them.

And.

And then we had a couple of guys make offers to us in the property to help us. And I take that information, and I'd sort of absorb and understand it. And then I. The next time I had a conversation, and funny enough, last week I had a company. Two weeks we had a company call me, a very large private equity firm, and they wanted to. They want this. This particular parcel of land for a solar project. And I think he was so baffled by our conversation because he didn't realize how much I knew about solar. And. And he was. I think he was just totally puzzled. He was like, holy crap. Like, why aren't you doing solar? And I told him, look, I got a full plate. I work on a lot of projects. This stuff's very intriguing. They're a big. It's a big project. I don't have a liaison with the power company, so it's just something that I can't do right now. But, you know, he having that. Being able to talk. The talk with a guy who's in the business makes the deal work a lot better. Right. Because he understands that I know what I'm talking about, and I'm not. He's not gonna pull the wool over my eyes.

Right.

So that deal sort of as it's evolving right now is. And it sounds like it, you know, we're two. Two and a half weeks into putting this option together. They want the property, and he understands that there's a lot of risk on my end to tie up the property for two years. So they have to come up with a lot of money up front in order.

Let's slow down for our newbies who don't know what an option is.

Okay.

Right. So do you want to explain what the option means?

Sure. So basically an option. And Mark and I have discussed this in the past an Option is simply you have a particular time and date to exercise an option. So you put together an option agreement where I have three years, I'm going to give you $1,000 down and I have three years to execute at a set price of, let's just say $100,000 as an example. So I have three years. So any point in time in that three years I have, I, I can, I can exercise my option by the land. So, and you can structure an option any way you want. And one of the ideas that Mark and I have given listeners in the past is to go, go put an option on a piece of land that you think is going to sell for a higher price than you can pay for it. So you give them a hundred dollars for 60 days, quote unquote, for your due diligence. But what you're actually doing is actually marketing the land to a potential buyer.

Right. And that's how you can lock down property with almost nothing. And you know, it's, it's like, it's like, you know, creating money basically.

Exactly, exactly. So. Exactly. So. So. So what we're doing with these guys with the solar project is structuring an option agreement where they're going to come up with money. And, and every option looks different. In this case there's an option with a lease on it, A monthly lease payment up to which you can either convert into, you know, the actual note itself or, or it's just a lease payment. And, and then you, they have the opportunity of exercising their option. You can structure an option with, in, in this case, you, Construction option work commitments, meaning they have to spend a certain amount of money every year on the project until they exercise that option. And if not, they owe that money to you. So it's called a. And you can call it different things, but we call, I call it work commitment. We're in the auction.

Okay.

So if that makes sense. So like in a mining world, a work commitment is basically taking 20. Let's just say, you know, three years of an option and the first year is 25,000 worth of work on the property. Second year is 50,000. Third year to be 100 grand. Fourth year, if you extend it out maybe 500 grand, the next year be a million. So you structure these work commitments and these are the kind of things that mining companies will do so that you know, you're not just tying the property up and doing nothing with it.

I see, I see. So you lock down the property and then you evaluate the highest and best use so you'll Say, okay, the highest and best use for this property might be solar, it might be a mining project, it might be a quick flip, it might be going vertical. Correct. Building. So how do you go about determining that?

Well, I think first of all, you got to allow your mind to be super creative. Right? You got to, you got to think, what are my options? There's no, there's no set structure or, or line items that you're going to go through and go, okay, I mean, you could, you could set up, you go, okay, is, you know, is there oil? Do I have oil rights? You know, what's the area look like for oil? Is there solar potential? What does the area look like for? So I mean, if you're in, if you're in Canada in the snow, on top of a, you know, 10,000 foot peak that has a, no, that has a 90 degree drop on it, you're probably not going to do solar. So there's certain things that you can instantly probably count out. Right. If there's no gold in the area or any mining, you're probably not going to look at mining. Is there residential growth moving your direction? Potentially, yes. So you look at it, you assess it. What's the potential? Is this property something I want to sell? Now remember, you can do an option on a piece of land for let's just say 90 days. And then you could take an entire marketing piece and, and build it around a certain idea. So in this case, let's say that they're built, let's say there's infrastructure moving that direction. You could build it around what the infrastructure's, what all the infrastructure that's coming into that town and say, look, this property is this far away. Here's Google Maps, here's the arrows. And all this cost you was a hundred bucks. And you could sell this property for 25, 30 grand. Maybe the property cost a grand. You could sell it for 25, 30 based on what you just sold as a marketing piece to your buyer.

Right, right. And that happens all the time, especially if you can have comps to back it up. So you look at the last three to five sales in that area and you say, look, that sold for 20, that sold for 15, that sold for 18, that sold for 30. We're gonna price it, you know, at 19, 5. And there you go. Now you've got your, your property and your sale and you've put a hundred bucks in. That's a pretty good payday. It's a pretty good profit when you, when you can do it like that. So, you know, that's interesting. But you don't go out and hire a third party consultant to help you evaluate highest and best use, even if it's an area you've never bought in.

Well, correct. I mean, those consultants aren't cheap. Right. So I might. You have to be your own consultant. Right. And if that, if that means educating yourself a bit, then you educate yourself.

Right.

And you're not going to know, you know, you're not going to figure out every opportunity. And for me, I'm sort of my own consultant. Right. I look at a property and you know, going back and we'll talk a little bit about that mining project, but that mining project, you know, we set this land. I knew there was mining potential for many years and yet I didn't, I didn't make any moves because I knew that in order for that move to be made, somebody had to come to me first. And that's exactly what happened. We had a gentleman come to come, come to me and ask me, wanted to buy the property. So I gave him a price tag on the property. And so I can't. He can't. He said, I can't afford it. I said, we can structure something creative. He said, I just, I don't have the money right now. I said, okay. So he goes, so I don't hear from the guy for two months. And he goes, hey, I want to buy the property. I said, here's the price, you know, I already told you what it was. He goes, I can't afford. I said, well, if you don't mind. What are you doing? He goes, oh, we're gold miners. And I said, well, your prices went up 10x and of course if you couldn't pay, you know what I, what I originally quoted him, he certainly wasn't going to be able to pay 10x on it. And, and so I basically just turned the deal around and we created a joint venture between us, which in turn I'm sort of, I have a managing role in the business and we're proceeding with what looks to be a very good project. And again, one of the interesting things about gold is we've spent, we do have, we have geologists, we have hired a lot of people now. Right. Because now we know there's something there.

Right, right. And how did, now how did you finance that part?

We have partners that, we've all had capital calls to kind of fund the project. We haven't, they would. We just did a recent, recently, two of the partners pulled in a raise. They sold their own shares, but I'm still able to fund the project on my own. So we're funding our end of it ourselves. But eventually we'll come into. Look, in fact, I have some meetings coming up here in the next couple of days with some very big investors that want to get involved. I'm not super excited about bringing an investor in because I believe that we're about three months away from a potential sale. So the project. So it's one of those things where once you get to a certain point, then you go out and you sort of. The creativity's put this part together now. It's the next level. Creativity is finding the capital, the next moves. How do we grow this project? Like anything, right? If you, if you see that there's potential infrastructure and you want to build a multifamily, you know, apartment complex because you. They're mining for oil and all of a sudden they hit a big, you know, they hit a. They hit a big well. You want to figure out how to get that done. So you've got to go do some legwork yourself. And then you want to bring the intelligent people around you that understand that stuff better than you do with you on, you know, on that journey, because that's the way to solve the problem. Like, for me, I have no mining background whatsoever, but I'm a business guy, so you show me numbers or the potential of numbers, and I can go find more money.

Yeah. You know, that's an interesting point, because one of my biggest pet peeves, when I'm talking to coaching students or, you know, potential prospective coaching students, whomever it may be, they always bring up, you know, cash is tight or I can't afford it right now. You know, I cannot stand that as an excuse for not doing something right. Because don't you. The real value is finding the deal. You'll always be able to find the money. You always be able to find the money. You find property, pennies on the dollar. That's the real value, right?

Correct. Now, now, here, let's just get one thing straight too, is that if you are, you know, doing Mark's program and you're there to get rich quick and people don't trust you and you've never been able to be trusted at some level because maybe you're a bad businessman or a woman and you've made some. Made some, done some bad things in the past, that's your own fault, right? Like, I can't. If you can't go raise money because people don't trust you, that's not something we can help you with. But if you, if you just risk averse and you don't want to go out there and do it, then that's your problem. Because you need, you can solve that problem.

Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. Risk aversion is what, you know, if you've got a bad track record, I.

Don'T know, tell you we can't help you.

Yeah, we can't, we can't help you there.

We can't stop. We can't, we can't. We can't get your credit up to 800 credit score, but we'll, we'll, we can certainly give you ideas. And you know what it is, though?

You don't even have good credit. Credit isn't an issue anymore. You know what it's about? Character.

Exactly.

Character. That, that we can't help you with. You either have character. You don't really.

Yeah, like Mark's. Mark. Mark's character score is about a 720 and I'm an 850.

You're an 850 character score and I'm a 720.

We should actually create that. A character score.

Yeah, we should create a character score.

That'd be awesome.

I'll tell you what, for information marketing, that'd be a huge thing because, you know, a lot of these gurus, nobody trusts them.

Nobody. And for good reason. Right? Because, you know, I mean, Mark, Mark's trying to sell something of value and, and giving so much away for free. And then there's so many guys out there that only have one thing in line and that's, that's what is their revenue, what's their bottom line? They just want to make money. It's a system and unfortunately, it's a trap for a lot of people. But just like, I think, you know, I just, I listen lately and between pharmaceuticals and college degrees and all the online schools, it scares me. They want everyone to be PhDs. I think so.

Right, right. And yeah, you know, I just did a coffee talk about how today, you know, being good isn't even good enough anymore. You've got to be outstanding today with everything. Because consumers have become so smart, right? And it's like the most outstanding. Take all the chips, right? There's no, you get some reward here and you get some reward there. It's like Tesla took everything. Fisker is just gone. Now. IPhone and Android are taking everything. There's no room for BlackBerry.

Right. It's funny, I was thinking about, I saw a commercial last night for iPad. I was like, what if iPad wasn't here, what else would exist? Right? Like, what else would we use? Like, the only reason we use iPad is because we're forced to use iPad. Meaning, like, it's marketed to us and shoved down our throat every day, you know, and apples and pieces and, you know, Microsoft, like, what if Microsoft. What if Windows wasn't there? And I always think about, like, would there be more creativity or less? So it's just an interesting thought looking at how this behemoth of Apple has created these iPad tablets. I mean, we have. Look, there's a lot of darn good tablets out there. And iPad. I don't think iPad's the best for tablets yet. They're the most expensive and everybody still buys them.

Right, right. In fact, that's gonna be one of my tips of the day, too, is an iPad app for. For land, which I downloaded and wanted to save.

I can't wait. I'm. I'm getting. I'm getting really excited to hear it now.

Yeah. You know what? I say that now. I don't even know where I put it. Okay. No, no, I found it. Okay, good. All right, good. So. All right, well, getting back to your projects.

Yeah.

So you've got solar going on right now. You've got mining. Right. So if I'm new to this game, where do you think it's going to be? So I love the Wayne Gretzky quote, don't skate to where the puck is. Skate to where the puck's going to be. What's the next big thing? And don't tell me it's the shale fields in North Dakota that's done. What's the next big innovative land play? Is it going to be alternative energy? Whereas, you know, I mean, look, there's a lot of companies out there that they're just not getting enough traction. It's just, you know, the solar panels just aren't cheap enough right now.

Yeah. You know, that's a tough one, Mark. I. You know, is it.

Is it wind? Could be wind.

No, I don't. You know, here's. There's a couple of things. Number one is when. When changes. I think ecosystems at some level, like, kills, birds. Kills. I think there's a lot of. There's starting to be. And I. I know it's still a big deal and wind is still very attractive, but I think the problem is that we're now getting into a point where we're killing certain species. So all these little things that are. Which I don't agree with, I think it's Silly. But I understand where some of these environmentalists come from, but I don't agree with them. But what's interesting is you look at solar and wind and think about how much value is in that. Right? Other than the fact that it's an eyesore for wind. There's so much value in having alternative energy. But here's the other problem is we're so focused on oil and we've been so focused on oil and the only way we'll ever not focus on oil is the day that Rockefeller or the Rockefeller family is wiped out, which that won't happen. So the fact of the matter is all these things sound really cool and we need to move that direction, alternative energy. But at the end of the day we still have an oil focus, which is why we drive cars that still only get 25 to 30 miles a gallon and, and we still push it down Americans throats because that's a moneymaker. Solar is free energy basically. And I'm saying obviously it costs a lot of money to create the project, but it comes from the sun and the sun is free. So I believe, and the same thing goes with wind. So I just think that there's not going to be a big push towards, toward alternative energy. In fact, I kind of believe what we've already had. A boom and a bust. We may be kind of going back. To me, that hockey stick went all the way to the bottom and maybe starting to come up again a little bit. But after all the, all the scams that went through with Obama's green energy plan, I think a lot of these things have sort of subsided and a lot of the big visionary plans for alternative energy have faded a bit. But one thing I do believe one of the upswing of is potentially is mining. And when I say that, I believe that you talk about the old, like our grandfathers. Like my grandfather, he was a gemstone guy. He loved gemstones and turquoise and sapphires and he always had these cool little things. I was like, those aren't cool. Like, you know, those were like, those were like 40 years ago.

Right.

But I think that all that, that sort of mining, I think as we sort of find, find that all we're doing is putting ourselves into further and further debt. You look at things like bitcoin. Have you seen bitcoin, Mark?

I, I, I love the bitcoin concept. It scares me. Yes, but I love the concept so.

And if you haven't had a chance to research bitcoin, just look at, it's very interesting. It's A total different dynamic than our fiat currency. But I just think that mining for different, whether it's commodities in Nevada, there's silver, there's gold, there's all sorts of stuff. I can't even name 10 of them. And it's starting to be a very popular direction for people that own land to at least research.

Right. So my advice would be, if you're, if you're investing in land now, take a two pronged approach. Right. Number one, you know, do it our way, which would be buying it pennies on the dollar. Right. So you're going to focus on, on sellers that don't want their property anymore. They're advertising the world, they don't want their property. And if you need to learn how to create that deal flow, you know, go to, you know, thelandgeek.com and sign up and get the investor's toolkit. We'll teach you how to do that. But the other approach is going to be, okay, research it where, you know, start getting in meetings with people that want to do these big projects, whether it be in mining or energy, and start exploring. Can I get a speculative play out of this property? That is, if I pay for, you know, this amount, can I flip it to someone that would want to speculate that in the future this could be a great energy play and I can make 10x20x30x on that piece of property? Does that make sense?

Exactly.

Yeah. So, yeah, I think that's, that's the way to go. So, getting back to tip of the week, so I found a iPhone app which I thought would be really helpful and it is going to my iPhone now. It's called Topo Maps. So you have this app and it's really nice looking and when you're out looking at property, it'll give you the coordinates of that property and then create the topographic map for you. And what's neat about this is that when you're marketing your property, it really helps to show a buyer the topographic map. And so that's going to be one of my tips of the week is this site called Topo Map. I'm looking at it right now. It looks pretty cool. And then there's another site that I found as we talk about maps, I'm going to go to the site now. It's iTouchmap.com iTouchmap.com and if we go here, let's take a look. Duran, have you heard of iTouchmap.com?

I have not.

Mark, go check it out. It's a neat site. It's similar to the TRS data one that we gave before, but this one's you put in an address and it'll give you the latitude and longitude. It'll take you to Google Earth. And it's for anywhere in the world, basically, so you can measure distance with it. It's a free site. It's a neat little utility. Check it out. Itouchmap.com so the topo map app for the iPhone. Itouchmap.com online to help you create maps. That is going to be my tip of the week. So, Duran, I know you got to run here. What do you got for me? Tip of the week?

Well, you know what? I just was looking at my desk. What on earth could I tell you guys that would be worth anything? And I just figured out, you know what, if you've got an iPhone or a cell phone and it breaks or it cracks, it's a bummer. There's a company called square trade. Squaretrade.com. you can remember them from ebay, Mark. A long time ago.

I remember Square Trade, sure.

So now they have these protection plans for phones for 99 bucks. Basically, anything other than the stolen or lost phone, they will replace the phone for you. And funny enough, we just had something happen the other day with Lauren's phone, and it was awesome. I think you get the phone like a day or two. So it's probably like the best warranty for any cell phone out there. So if you do, if you're working on your phone and if you're in the middle of somewhere and you drop it or you run it over or it falls off the car and shatters the screen, you send it in and you get a new phone.

Nice.

So, not really pertaining to what we're talking about today, but I just was thinking, gosh, what can I give that would have any value? Not even sure that has much value.

To you guys, but what's going on with LanHub? You want to plug Land Hub before we go?

No, we're just working on it. We're still working away. So we're into the YouTube creation phase or Vimeo creation. We're doing video creation right now, so. Working on that intently. So.

All right.

Other than that, that's.

That's it. All right, Great, great. Well, Duran, thanks so much for hopping on this week. Listen, if you want to learn more tips, tricks, techniques, how to make an incredible income buying and selling raw land, go to www.thelanegeek.com. download for free the passive income Blueprint, get the free ebook how to Avoid the Three Fatal Land Buying Mistakes. And of course, get this podcast delivered each week delivered to your inbox. And look, if you want to buy some wholesale land, give Duran some love. Go to reserveland.com and if he doesn't have anything you want, go to my site. Go to frontierpropertiesusa.com and you can also subscribe there to get incredible wholesale land delivered each week to your inbox. So this is Mark Podolski, the Land Geek with Duran Fraser. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.

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