The Land Geek Podcast #3

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's the man that's gonna help you do that. The Land Geek. Hello everybody out there in podcast land.

Mark.

It's Mark Podolsky, the Land Geek again. And I'm pleased to be with the multi talented joran frazier of reserveland.com duran. What's on your mind? How are you, buddy?

First off, I'm not multi talented. Let's just clarify one thing. I'm talented at just one thing and I think that's being a daddy. That's about it right now. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, it's been a crazy. Well, gosh, maybe I don't even qualify as that. But anyway, yeah, I. Everything's good, man. Just living the dream. In San Diego, weather's beautiful. My kids, I'm actually watching them climb the hill of my house here, which they enjoy doing that. But my son told me about an hour ago that he found a creature that he's never seen before. So it was pretty neat. He's having a blast out there.

So good. Carl's bad. So I have to tell you, Scottsdale is beautiful right now, but I know we're gonna get punished because come like late April. Usually every year April, it gets really hot, like 90s. Right now we're like 70s and 80s. It's just gorgeous. But I'm going to pay for it because in October when it's supposed to break, it's going to be like 1:10. So I'm not even that excited. I hate to be negative about the weather, but that just seems like the way it is. So let's talk about your latest adventure, your latest acquisition, because I know it was phenomenal for you. You don't want me to say the county out of fear that everyone's gonna go to the county next year. So I'll just say a county in Nevada. Perfect. Are you happy with that?

Yeah, I think.

Tell us about the auction at the county in Nevada.

I've got secrets. Let me tell you. I mean, these are secrets that we'll reveal to our very, very, very special members.

You gotta be on the membership site. So we're not. This isn't free information anymore. Now you've got to pay. But we'll just. You can just kind of tease everybody and say this was a great auction. And I don't it was so great. I don't want anybody going next year.

Okay, let me. Let me give you a couple of things that I was looking at acquiring. So this is one of those auctions. Mark, as you guys all know, is one of those guys that will hang out at home, send out an agent, pay him, you know, half of what he probably should, and then try to have a bid on. Bid on a property. But unfortunately, not being there obviously, is a little bit tough. So if you've got the. If you've got someone there and they're bidding for you, it's a little bit harder. You're not. You're not making eye contact with the other bidders, staring them down, because you want the property. Maybe doing something funny or saying something mean to the guy, hey, stop bidding, dude. I want this property.

Now. Wait a second. Be fair to me. If it's. If I think it's gonna be a really good auction, I'll go, okay? But if I'm 50, 50 on it, I'll send somebody.

I disagree. I 100%.

You're go to all your auctions. Every single one. You're not gonna send an agent to any auction.

I just fly to Florida.

You're going to go to Texas?

Florida? Who goes to auctions in Florida?

Florida's big.

I go to sunbathe out there anyway, so. No, you're right. I don't go to every auction. I do have people go for me, but. But in this case, I did have somebody go for me. There was a. There was a list of properties that I wanted so bad. There was. I think there was seven properties. I wanted one. One of the properties. Okay, there's just. It was a little area and we'll just. I'll just. I'm not going to hide anything. A little town called Kingston, Nevada. Beautiful little town outside of Austin, Nevada. It's a little subdivided town. Probably got about three or four hundred people in the population. Got a little bed and breakfast there. And the lots were selling for 2 to 3,000 apiece, which is kind of expensive for a building lot. But some of these lots have.

How big were they?

Anywhere from a third of an acre to an acre, acre and a half. With infrastructure, Some with infrastructure in place, some with paved roads. But here was the dynamic. And if you hadn't researched it, this is where you could get in big trouble. There was a flood. I had heard this from someone that I knew that wasn't buying at the auction. And so I did some research. And so as I'm doing My research, I realized that almost all the properties were in a hundred year floodplain, but that floodplain actually flooded about two or three years ago and wiped out a bunch of properties. So really interesting stuff. So they went and they sort of rebuilt the floodplain map, the hundred year floodplain map for this area. And about 80% of the properties were in the floodplain. So and the hundred year floodplain. Now that doesn't necessarily mean it's a big deal. The 100 year floodplain could end up being a thousand year floodplain. And we know the story. I mean, you know, with, with, with Al Gore's global warming, we never know what could happen.

All right, let's, let's not get into a political debate right now. So you're, so you, so you're not worried about the 100 year floodplain because people can just build up, right?

I, I, I personally am. Okay, so, so what I would do is, I would.

Oh, you are, you are worried about it, Correct, Correct.

Because for me as a salesman, I can't sell somebody a property for, you know, a certain price that the neighboring properties are selling for if I know it's in a floodplain. So it just doesn't feel right. It's unethical. I like to know what I'm selling.

Why not just, why not just disclose it's a hundred year floodplain? The odds of it flooding are small.

Well, I just, I don't know. So anyway.

And lower the price? No. Good.

Well, here's the thing. If you can avoid it, avoid it. Right. So in my case, I agree, I agree.

But you know, I have seen people sell, you know, junk like that and they disclose it and people buy it. So look, I don't judge, but I think you're right. I think the best thing for your customer is have a quality, you know, piece of property.

Exactly, exactly. So long story short, goes to the auction. There's a couple of pieces I wanted really bad. There was a 200 acre parcel that had a well on it. And the opening bid was, let's say, $750. My target price was 15 to 17,000. I was willing to go up to 17 if we felt like we could pick it up at 17. And of course it went for 18. It's one of those properties that you could do a little bit of work to. You could, it's a beautiful property, a little maybe like a 10 acre area where you could actually put some infrastructure on it. And then another, you know, another 190 acres of some beautiful hills that look up to the granite mountains with some beautiful pine tree. It's just a gorgeous property.

Let me throw an idea out at you and get your feedback on this.

Yeah.

What if you contacted. We both know who won that auction, Charlotte at Smile4U. And what if you just contacted, Charlotte said, hey, let's go on in on this. 50 50, and I'll improve it. I'll help you improve it. I'll do all the work. You put in half the money. Why not? Why not partner on it? Why have the zero sum game with a piece of property you both want? You guys know each other. You trust each other. You've done deals together. Why not?

Well, I mean, let's put this way, Mark, you and I have done deals together, and it's never gone good. It's always been a sour deal. So for me.

By the way, he's being facetious. We made a lot of money on.

Our deals together anyway, so, you know, it's one of those things. You're right. I could do that. But what I ended up doing is spending some more money down the line, which there was some additional properties that I did want. So let me go back to the story. So she. So I actually am not 100% sure, but I'm. But I'm 98% sure she's the one. Because I wasn't there. I had somebody bidding for me.

Oh, okay.

So anyways, we get to the next. And that's why being in an auction like that. And the problem was there's only one or two that I really wanted very badly. And it was. It wasn't worth my time to fly up there and handle it. So I had somebody go for me. Had I been up there, I would have paid 18 or 19,000 for it and bought the property. So going. But going back, the interesting part was, so I had never seen a county do this before. All these lots in Kingston that were about anywhere from, let's just say, 1900 bucks per parcel for a building lot in this town of Kingston to about 2,300 bucks a lot. Whatever the price, they. They went for 19 or 20, but there's about 10 or 15 of the. Of those lots of. Of the 50 they had for sale that didn't sell. So what the county did at the end was they started the bid at 300 bucks.

No, they lowered it.

They lowered it. And they. And I picked up. My guy, picked up an extra three, which amazingly. And I checked them all out, and about 85% of them were in the floodplain. Everyone that he got me, and he didn't do any research, he just was like, I want, you know, that one's three and I'll take it. Everyone was out of the floodplain, which is beautiful. But one of them didn't have any utilities or access. The other one's kind of a little bit iffy. And the ones got paved road. Beautiful. Right across street from a bed and breakfast. It's a. It's like 4/10 of an acre. You know, whatever, you know, it's a good. It's a good property.

What can you sell that property for? And you're going to sell cash or terms?

Most of my stuff is terms now. I can probably sell that property for, I would say between 8 and 10,000 on terms. Wow.

It's pretty good. So it's good to turn.

Yep. And again, it's one of those things where there's not much inventory in that area for land for sale. It's actually a fairly high demand area because it's a beautiful. It's sort of like there's a little town called Unionville, which Mark and I know very well.

I know Unionville very well.

Sandra Bullock.

That's right. I was going to say, do you know the story that's. That's the bed and breakfast Sandra Bullock is famous for staying at.

Exactly. And so it's one of those towns just like that where it's got really, really nice. If you go on reviews, I don't know what the name of the bed and breakfast is, but you just put in Bed and Breakfast, Kingston, Nevada, and it'll pop up. But the reviews are amazing.

It's really. Yeah, it's like this really pretty, like, area and that. It's like a little oasis in the desert. I mean, really green and lush. There's. There's like $800,000 homes in there in that canyon, aren't there?

In which one? In Kingston?

No, no, in Unionville. Like, yeah, there's a canyon, you know, I'm talking about.

Exactly. And it's very similar to Kingston, is very similar to Unionville. So. And it's about. It's about 35, 40 minutes outside of Austin, Nevada. So pretty little town. And so, yeah, I was excited. I got about five lots in that. In that town. A couple of them. One is right on the airport where you can actually. You can fly your airplane in and actually you could pull it right up to your lot and. And probably put a little. I mean, it's. It's enough property. Put a little hanger on your lot. So.

Wow.

Pretty neat.

That's really cool. Congrats.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you. And then I got another lot that I was very excited about. One of the things that we do as, and one of the things that I do especially is I look at property and I kind of try to find the highest and best use. And so I picked up a little four acre property with paved road access. Utilities are pretty close by, but it's in a booming little area of northern Nevada for mining. So what I'm going to be doing is looking at either, you know, an RV park or some temporary housing. So I'll have to rezone it and do some more development work. So I kind of, I'm a little bit further outside the lines of just buying and selling. I'll buy, I'll look at opportunities, I'll develop if necessary. So I'm, I. Which is the neat part is when I'm looking at these auctions, I don't just look for what can I buy? And flip, but what can I buy, what can I develop, what can I hold? And of course you and I have held several parcels, so we still have lots of acreage that we're not going to sell.

Yeah, we should, we should do just a podcast on the development process and how that works and what that entails. I mean, that could be like two podcasts. That's really. It could be very complex and it's worth it. The numbers can really work. But just so everybody knows out there, the reason I don't spend a lot of time developing is 90% of developers in this country go under. Those that make it do really, really well. And we all know the most famous of them is Donald Trump. But even he had his problems. So you've got to really know what you're doing and, and you've got to have a lot of money to develop. Because the reason that 90% fail is they run out of money. They just can't get their projects done. What's the old saying in construction? It always takes longer and costs more. Is that right?

I think it's build and they will come.

Well, that's true. Yeah, that's true too. That's for the 10% of developers that hit their home runs. So look, it's a risk reward. I mean, I'm more the old school or the school of thought that, you know, make, make subtle improvements to increase the value. But you don't necessarily have to go vertical. I mean, I'm, I'm quite comfortable just, you know, maybe even putting in easements or, you know, fencing put. Dropping a. Well, not necessarily going fully vertical on a property. But that is something that we should probably discuss on another podcast.

Yep. No, I mean, the entitlement process of a property and taking a property to its, you know, quote unquote, highest, highest and best use is something that we can certainly look at down. Down the line talking about, but it's, it's something that everybody looks at, you know, when you're buying or you should look at. Not everyone does, but looking at, you know, what other opportunities are available. Because then not, not. Not that you have to go vertical, but you could certainly sell it as if it were a going vertical piece of property. Meaning find the developer, go research and do some homework and go, okay, cool. I want to create an RV park here. Well, let me go find some people that are RV park investors and see if there's any interest in this property. So it's a marketing tool and it keeps your brain thinking.

Nice, Nice. Well, listen, I'm not going to let you have all the accolades this week for buying property at auction. I've received four letters back on my letter writing campaign for. I'm not gonna. Am I afraid of the competition? No, I'm not afraid. Humboldt River Ranch Estates. I bought four properties. Two two and a half acre properties and two one and a half acre properties. And let me tell you, I'm gonna make a lot of money on this deal. I know it sounds like we're, we're boasting, but how else are we gonna tell people how, you know, teach people how to do this unless we talk about our deals. I'm not saying this to brag because this is the business. We buy property, pennies on the dollar, and then we sell it retail. So if it sounds like bragging, I don't mean to brag. I just mean to say this is how we do it. And my letter writing campaign is going really well out there. So I'm very excited about those four properties.

That's good. I'm happy for you. I really appreciate that you actually brought me in just so you guys have a little backstory on me and Mark. Every deal I ever did at the age of 21 up until the age of 26, I brought Mark in as a friend into every deal that I did. And now looking back on it, now that I'm, gosh, I'm old, I'm 35, I look back and I go, gosh, you know, how much has Mark brought To me. Although I will say, one Christmas, Mark did buy me a $9.95 joke machine and sent it to me. And I still to this day, remember. What a beautiful gift.

First of all, that is not true. That is not true at all. We've done deals together, okay? Together. And you want in on this property? I'll get you in on this property. I have no problem with it. I told you what I was gonna do. You didn't say, oh, I want in. Now you want in.

You know, it's okay.

Let's not argue out on the podcast. We'll talk about it. I have no problem doing, you know, additional deals with you in this area if I knew you had interest.

So, you know, it's okay. I have. Yeah, you might forget, I actually buy land anywhere. Yeah. Anyways, we'll talk about that later. Tell me, tell me, what did you pay for these properties? Just tell the listeners.

1500 for the two and a half acre and 990 for the one and a half acre.

Awesome. What streets were they on, if you don't mind me asking?

They're phase C, the Humboldt River Ranch.

Face C is. What roads are those?

I don't know. I don't have it right in front of me.

Okay, so are they on the. I think, are there some properties? You know, I don't know if I'm. If there are or not, but on the west side of the freeway, are there properties or is it all on the east side?

Honestly, I couldn't tell you. I don't know.

Mark, you're pathetic. You don't even know what you're buying.

No, it's not that I don't know what I'm buying. It's that I haven't personally done the research. I just got these deals and I'll do it.

Wow.

I will look at them. I will look at the maps. Look, I'm running a business here, okay? It's not. It's. It's a one man operation. But look, I've got systems in place so that I'm not working in the business. I'm working on the business. I just want to do deals, Dran. I don't want to get the nitty gritty. Is this on the east side or the west side? I want to buy property cheap and sell it. That's all I want to do.

Okay, let's listen.

Do you think Richard Schultz right now is making the cappuccino? No, he's running his business. He's working on his business. I think he wants business.

Oh, you might be right. You know, the interesting part is I really, I feel, I feel like this, this real close connection to every parcel I buy. So maybe that's the part of my problem I like to really like. I'm a land guy. I like to be on the ground, I like to feel it, I like to hold it. And you know, sometimes it's not a smart thing. Like Mark, Mark, Mark. It's a business. And so Mark doesn't, doesn't really get that, you know, that, that really close connection with his land. And so, you know, call me crazy, which I like to know what I'm buying, where I'm buying. And like, in this case, the reason I asked you if it was on the west side is that that's obviously where the Rye Patch Reservoir is. And that's a very, a very great selling point for property. So I think that majority of the subdivisions on the, on the, on the west or on the east side of the freeway, and I don't know if there's any part, there are some parcels there, but I think they're bigger on the west. On the west side of the freeway there, that's by the reservoir. But that said, you know, I, that 1.5 and 2 or 2 and a half acres, those are great parcels.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, look, I agree with Duran. You've got to know your property. That being said, I have systems in place. I've got my mapping guy, I've got my marketing, I've got my deal flow systems. The deals come in, I review them, I'll review the maps. And when it comes down to having a conversation with a customer and he wants to know, is it on the west side or the east side? I'll have that information at that time. At this stage of the game, though, I'm not there yet because that's not a money making activity at this point in my process. So it's not that I think Duran's right. I think you need to be intimately knowledgeable about what you're selling. I just think that you should have systems in place so that you can do more deal flow. And then when it comes down to the point where you need to start selling, you need to know your property absolutely short of actually going and stomping on it. But again, when you start doing real volume, you can't get to every single piece of property yourself. And it's just like any other business. Again, you've got to work on the business and not necessarily so much in the business. And that's the whole point of getting out of solo economic dependency. You're not in business to have a job. You're not creating a job for yourself. You're creating, you know, a company so that it's just, it's just a different philosophy. And look again. Duran, how many hours a week do you work?

I'm going actually it's Friday. It's Friday at 4:30. And I've put in about an hour and a half this week. So it's been up, but it's been a, it's been a pretty slow week.

So you're doing the same thing. It's not like you're spending all day, all day and all night looking at maps, stomping on property, taking pictures. And in doing all that yourself, I.

Mean, I did have lunch with, I did have lunch with an old NFL linebacker today, which was kind of enjoyable. So.

Really, are you gonna name drop?

You know, I'm not a big name drop. He was, he didn't start. I think he started a couple of seasons. Yeah, Glenn played for Kansas City, but I think you're a Kansas City fan, aren't you?

No, no, I lived in Kansas City, but I'm a rams. I'm from St. Louis.

That's right. Okay. Anyway, he played for Kansas City for several years, then he, then he ended up starting on the super bowl team for the Denver Broncos. I think 98, 99. So Glenn, Glenn's a good friend of mine. But we had lunch today and we were, we were chatting. Not land obviously, but we did, we did talk about some real estate actually was interesting because we talked about some eye opening stuff where he was buying some land and he had the opportunity to make some money, but he didn't have the right knowledge to make the money and put the pieces together. And he ended up, ended up being a loser for him. And it was really unfortunate. But, but going back to it, you know, you got to know what you're buying and you got to have, you do have to have a system in place so that when. Because it's not just I buy and then I sell it. I buy. I know how to sell, I know where to go to sell, I know how to market it. So there's a lot, there's a lot more variables involved than just going to buy a piece of land.

Right, right. I mean, it's research first, then buy it. Right. Then sell it in the right way and then it all works out. But. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about one of my favorite shows on TV and I'm going to segue into Shark Tank. Do you want Shark Tank?

Unfortunately, I watch it way too much. In fact, I will play it over and over again just to get ideas.

Really? I love Shark Tank. So Shark Tank is this. It's on abc. I watch it on my iPad all the time. They take the Sharks. These are guys who have done really well in business. Mark Cuban, the billionaire. Kevin o' Leary's on there. He's another billionaire venture capitalist, another software guy. What's his name? Herjavec. I can't even pronounce his name. And Daymond John from fubu. And then they have Barbara Corcoran, used to be on, who's like a real estate mogul from New York. And they have. Is it Lori from qvc? Is that her name? Anyways, they have this panel, and then people pitch them ideas on what their next. What their business is, and the sharks grill them and try to make a deal. What I find fascinating about that part is how few of the entrepreneurs, even if they have a great idea, they don't have their arms around the numbers of their business. Do you. Do you see that?

You know, it's funny you talk about that. And one of the things that I do on the side, which I've mentioned before, is I actually mentor several startup companies in San Diego. And so I get to see what the Shark Tank is. I get to see it several times a month. And I see the same problem. You know, what is the valuation of my company? What are the numbers? What is the potential revenue? Right?

Like, they don't even know what their revenue is. Sometimes they don't even know what their earnings are or their costs.

It's an idea.

Amazing. They don't know it hold. And. And I want to talk about that, because in the land business, you've got to know your numbers cold. And it's not that complicated. And I'm not a numbers guy. I think I'm more a. A marketing guy, really. What about you dream are you. Do you like the numbers aspect of this business? The accounting?

Don't give yourself. Don't give yourself too much credit about you being a marketing guy, please.

Well, I like. Okay, fine, I'll say I like the marketing.

Okay, you know what? I actually am a numbers guy, but marketing is my forte. So I sort of, you know, in school growing up, I was a guy that could take two very large equations, put them together very quickly, and my friends would say, wow, you're really smart. And I said, no, I'm not, because this is All I can do. So, no, I enjoy the marketing side, but I am a numbers guy. And so generally, when I look at every deal, I'm always thinking exit strategy. Exit strategy. What can I sell this property for? What can I. What can I liquidate the property for? What can I sell it on terms for? So everything is always a numbers game to me.

Right. Right.

So.

So I. I hate accounting and I'm an accounting mess, and I might as well tell the story. When I first started this business, I set it up all wrong and I paid way too much in taxes. So the whole point is you can be an investor in real estate or you can be a dealer in real estate. Investors pay capital gains taxes, which right now I believe is 15%, and dealers pay ordinary income tax, which in our business is typically 40%. If I had set it up correctly, being an investor, and there's all these criteria that make you an investor, I would be paying a lot less taxes. But because I set it up incorrectly from the very beginning, I'm technically a dealer and had to form a separate corporation strictly for investment and to get the capital gains treatment. But that's a whole other thing. But when you first start doing this, find yourself a CPA that understands those two concepts, investor and dealer, and have them help you set up with a real estate attorney so that you are an investor and not a dealer of real estate. Duran, did you set up.

Okay.

When you first started this, or do you have any tax issues like me?

Well, I don't know. Let's go, let's go back and talk about this real quick. A tax issue. As a dealer, when you're making a certain amount of money, you pay. As a dealer, you pay these, which is ordinary income or your capital gain rate. It's generally a lot more money. But the fact of the matter is, we're, number one, we're not, we're not CPAs. We're not attorneys. But we did. And let's just clarify that so people don't take any advice.

No, no, I'm being very clear. Go to a tax attorney and go to your cpa. Don't. Yeah, but, but I'm saying, you know, have them set that this up for you correctly and ask them, how can I become an investor?

Yeah, and this is, and this is, and I'll just give you a quick subject as to why. What happens when you do it the wrong way? I did do that the wrong way, but in. As a dealer, as a court. So the corporations, basically, you're declared a. It's really hard to get out of that. And so I had some properties that I held for seven or eight years. I knew it was a potential, one of my sales was a potential geothermal sale down the line. And so I kept this property for several years, sold the property and I paid short term cap or long term capital gains because it was a long term hold. And I filed that with the irs. I actually ended up amending it, which is the red flag. IRS came back to me and we went to tax court and lo and behold, I won because I, that's, I brought the evidence, I brought the evidence back. So it was it. But again, at the same time it was a nightmare and I spent money on that trying to solve it. So, so there is, there, there is implications being a dealer, but you can do it right where if you buy a certain amount of properties under one or two corporations and spread things out and do it right, but you can, you can find yourself in a different position as an investor, not a dealer. So I agree and a lot of, a lot of listeners are probably going, well, I only want to buy a couple of properties anyways just to kind of get my feet wet and I don't know how long I'll do this. Well, in that case, certainly do it the right way and make sure that your tax guy understands that.

Right, Right. Okay, so let's talk about accounting. What accounting system do you use?

I'm really old school, Mark. I don't use a system. I'm Excel based. Yeah, tell me about, tell me. I mean I'm old school with accounting stuff. Tell me, what do you use? And I, and Of course Quick, QuickBooks, obviously for a lot of my, you know, first, for a good portion of that as well.

But primarily in Excel you're using QuickBooks. Then you're using, okay, I use a database like Excel, but I use Bento, which is a Mac. It's like, it's like, it's like Excel for dummies. What I use, and I'm looking at my database right now. I have acquisition parcel, legal description, Acres auction, id, listing date, email address of the people that are my customers, the purchase date, the sold price, the date sold, my cost, my profit, my return on investment, my profit percentage. And then I have a little field here for assessed value if I need it. And then from there I have everything flow into. Now I used to use QuickBooks but I found that I wasn't having a good time with that because of my computer, because I'm on a Mac and QuickBooks on the Mac is terrible. So then I switched systems and I used a web based program. Have you heard of mint.com? i have actually. Intuit bought them. So Mint is like this web based personal finance website and it's really great. And I use something similar like that for business called Indineiro. I just got an email last month. Indonero.com is no longer dealing with small businesses like myself and they're charging like $400 a month. They're like, oh, if you want to stay with us, it's $400 a month. So I said, goodbye, Indineiro. And I just found this great web based site. Actually, this is my tip of the day. It's called Kashoo.com, k A S H O O.com Durant I'm telling you, this company's Canadian. It downloads all my transactions from my bank. So all my banking, my two checking accounts, my savings account, and then my credit card account which has a lot of the expenses on it. And it's so easy to reconcile. And you put in your vendor and you put in your expenses and your income and it's such a pleasure and it's nice. And the best part about it is Sandra. Sandra. Sandra is the person you call when you have a question. You talk to a real person. Where In De Niro. You'd have to like email them and 48 hours later they'd email you back. Sandra calls you back, she walks you through your numbers. I'm telling you, I think it's like I'm getting it free right now for the free trial. I think three months free. I think it's like 30 bucks a month. It's nothing. It's fantastic. So that's what I'm doing because we do a lot of transactions and it's my tax return. Every year. My CPA looks at me and he says, congratulations, you win again for the thickest return because of all the notes. I can't imagine how thick your return is.

My return? Yeah, dude, I don't make much money. Come on, Mark, let's.

No, no, not just, you know, what you're paying in taxes and how much money you're making. I'm saying like just the complexity of your tax return, how thick it's got to be because of the notes and the different entities and all the stuff you're doing.

Yeah, no, you're right. And I'm just teasing. I do, I do. You know, I'm not going to lie to listeners. I do, I do make money. So. And I do have a very complex. In fact, a lot more complex than you, because I'm not involved in just two different things, which is selling land for cash and selling land returns. But I'm also invested in several startups. I basically have a very divorce diversified portfolio. So it is very.

Yeah. So part of your team when you do this is set up your accounting system correctly and stay on top of it from day one. And really, if the takeaway of this is, you've got to know your numbers cold. So you've got to know your numbers going into a deal, but then you just need to know your business numbers. You need to know how much money is going out every month, whether it's for marketing, what your marketing expenses are, what your professional services expenses are. That might be for attorneys and accountants, your virtual assistants you might use, or an employee. And you've got to keep your expenses in line because business can be broken down in a really simple manner. Charge as much as the market will bear and keep your expenses as low as possible, and then the rest is profit. That's pretty much it, right?

That's it.

Everything else is just complexity to the game, which you can, you know, enjoy that game or you can not enjoy that game, and, you know, business becomes a little bit more. Less fun. But that's really what it is. So cashew.com is my tip of the day. Dre, what's your tip of the week? I should say the week. We do this once a week.

Wow, Mark, you always put me on the spot.

Yeah, you haven't even thought about it. This is our third time we're doing it. Come on. You've got to have something.

Wow. There's a great website I go to use to market. It's called eBay.com.

Come on.

You may have heard it.

Come on. That's. You're gonna be your site.

No, no, no. Give me. Give me a quick mo. You keep talking, and then I'm gonna think. I'm gonna think very hard right now as to what is a great way. You know what? Let me just pull down my bookmark. My bookmark bar here. Let's see.

All right, he's thinking that I've got. I've got a book recommendation. I've got two recommendations. I just read this. It's Paulo P A U L O Coelho. C O E L H O. Paulo Coelho. He's really big, but he's an independent book guy. He wrote the manuscript found in Accra. It's unbelievable. If you're ever lacking Motivation or lust for life and read this book. It's really inspiring and I loved it. And in fact, I cheated. I didn't even read it. I listened to it. Jeremy Irons, the phenomenal English actor is the narrator and he's great. So I'm actually going to listen to this again. There was only like a five hour audible audible.com book. But yeah, the, the manuscript found in Accra read by Jeremy Irons. Fantastic. So that's, that's my second tip of the week. All right, what do you got for us?

Okay, you know, I got a little more. How about a little marketing tip?

Okay, great.

How about a little. You want a little marketing tip? Okay, so some of you people are going to learn. You know, maybe I don't even know this is pertinent, but I'm going to go ahead and give anyway. One of the things that I did when I first got started was I really had to learn how to market and figure out how to do a lot of things automated. And one of the websites that I found was a website called Twitter Adder and Twitteradder was. Do you know what Twitteradder was?

I do know Twitter Adder. Yeah, it's great site.

It's a site where basically and a lot of people say, oh, it's a secret. Well, it's not a secret. You do a little web search, you can find it pretty quick, but you can set things up and you can find people on a demographic level like based off of like 100 miles within the radio of San Diego, California, whatever the case is. And then who are talking about certain things like land. I'm looking for land. I'm buying land. So you could use a program like that to actually refine your search of potential buyers. So it's a pretty neat little program and it costs a few hundred bucks or whatever it is, but something that I've used in the past to find potential buyers.

Are you real big on social media? We should talk about social media next week.

Funny enough, I'm really big in the sense that I'm well versed in it. In terms of land, I don't know if that crossover yet is there where you're really going to get a ton of clientele from it. And I don't use it very often for land. I use a lot of the marketing sites if you're looking for land and maybe you stumble across something on a Facebook ad, which really simple to do and we can talk about that next week. But it's something that I don't utilize Now, I do utilize Facebook ads for other projects, but I do not use it for land because it's really something that, you know, is the ROI there. How much are you going to spend to get a client? What are the clients looking for to really refine that demographic? Generally your clients are going to land Watch Lands ofAmerica land flip.com those are the websites that are looking for land. They're not going to go on Facebook and click your become a fan of Reserve Land or of the Land Geek. It just doesn't generally happen and you're spending a lot of money per click.

All right, well, listen, Duran, thanks so much for doing this again this week. Let's do it again next week. Again, this is Duran Frazier with reserveland.com check out his site and all his excellent pieces of property I believe are listed on there. And if you guys would go to www.thelandgeek.com download my blueprint on the passive or the passive investors blueprint, which talks about getting out of solo economic dependency. So thanks everybody for taking time out of your day to listen, time to get back to work and make it an extraordinary weekend and week. And we'll see you again next week. This is Mark Podolski, the Land Geek out dran, everybody.

Have a great weekend. You know there's never a day off when it comes to land.

Always be researching a B R. Always be researching. I love that. All right, buddy, thanks.

All right. Have a good day.

All right, talk to you.

Bye.

Thank you for listening to another episode of the Land Geek. Join us next time for more tips, secrets and information that will help you succeed. Stay connected with the Land geek on Facebook. Facebook.com thelandgeek.