The Land Geek Podcast #56

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 from your friends favorite land niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and I'm tired, exhausted if you will, because I just got home from Vegas. Vegas, baby. The two day Land Geek boot camp. And of course, this man needs no introduction because got to spend all weekend with my good buddy. Got him away from the ocean, got him away from the waves just so he could spend the weekend with the Land Geek community. Jaran Frazier, welcome to the podcast. What's up, buddy?

That was a very. Thank you for the welcome. I appreciate that. It sounds a lot like the conference, actually.

That's right, that's right. So what did you think of the conference? What were you expecting and how did it go for you?

I was expecting there to be a clown when I got there to do some tricks and stuff, but it all worked out pretty well, I think. You up on stage sharing a ton of good information. That was the most undervalued conference I've ever been to.

Thank you. You mean that we gave more value than correct.

Undervalued, meaning we didn't. We should have charged everybody like 10,000 to come and not given them free tickets to those who had the toolkit and charged a few hundred bucks to those that didn't. So.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Exchange in abundance.

Yes.

Which is, which is a topic that we talked about and you know, I have to, you know, before we really get into the podcast in Vegas, I do want to thank everybody that came from near and far. We had people from Vegas come to the event. We had people come from as far as Boston. Jeff was there. We had people from the west coast, Utah, California. We had people from North Carolina there. But my buddy Ben Hutchins flew in from Sydney, Australia for the two day boot camp and he actually won the Milan raffle. I was so pleased. And now I've got stressed because I got all this stuff I have to get back to from being gone for two days and playing catch up and I still have to get Ben out his deed. So Ben, if you're listening, I haven't forgotten about that.

Yeah. Congrats, Ben. Congrats to Everybody, I think there's a couple of prizes that were given away, or at least one, which. It's really weird, Mark, because you kept talking about Apple, Apple, Apple, and you give away a Windows tablet. I'm confused.

Yeah, exactly. It makes perfect sense. If I'm a Mac guy, why would I give out an iPad? I'd give it to my kids.

That's true.

The Surface is nice.

It is nice. I do want to say also, thank you all for coming. It was a pleasure. I think I had a chance to shake just about everybody's hand, but if I didn't, I apologize. But it was great meeting everybody. I do want to apologize to those that had to hear me sound like a dog crying when. And I busted out some opera music. But that was great.

Do it again. Can you do it for everybody that missed the boot camp? This is what you missed.

Just.

Just give a little quick sample of what you sang.

No, I'm not.

Come on, man. I know you're not my performing monkey. One bar. Everyone loved it.

No, I can't. I can't do it.

Sorry, Sorry.

You got to pay. You got to pay next time to come to the conference. And I will have. This is my guarantee for the next conference.

I can't afford your fees.

I will sing a different song in Latin next time we come to the conference. It'll be a good one. It'll be one that most people know, but it'll be in Latin. It's good. It's good.

You're funny. But you made it a vacation. So Duran brought his beautiful model wife to the event, and she spent about a good 15 minutes. I was thrilled that she didn't fall asleep. That was really the whole goal. Will Lauren fall asleep while I'm talking? Because the kids are back home. Who watched the kids?

My mom.

My mom. Your mom watched the kids? So that was like a vacation. You guys went to the beach, we did the pool.

I mean, and then, funny story, actually, when I left after my little speaking performance at about 2:30 or so, I went to the pool and I met this gentleman who was like one of the heads at Red Bull. And he said, hey, join us. Tonight, we're going to a little concert at the Wynn. And we go over there and he took care of us like we were royalty, which is pretty awesome. So it was a win win for us. It was pretty cool.

That's great. That's great. Yeah. I mean, Vegas was so fun. And the Marriott, even though it wasn't on the Strip, it was a really nice Hotel. I was surprised how nice it was. It was big.

Yeah, it was big. Definitely big. You know, it was really neat. I don't know if you had a chance to go visit, but it was amazing. It was called Tivoli Village or Tivoli Village. I don't know how you pronounce it.

I think it's pronounced tiv.

Yeah, Tivoli Village, which Lauren and I walked to on the second morning of the conference. We walked over there, had breakfast, but what an incredible little place. It was really cool. And they're expanding, looks like, on that. On that development, which is neat.

Right? Right. But, yeah, I was just so thrilled with the turnout and that everybody came and, you know, we started as sort of a classroom. Right. And by the end of the weekend, we were definitely a cohesive community. And watching that evolve and watching people, you know, network with one another, exchange cards, tell their stories, tell their success stories about how they're making money buying and selling land. Whether it was for cash flips, you know, doing land notes, the energy in the room was palpable. I mean, everyone there was excited. Everyone there, whether they've been doing it for five years or just in their first year, they just got it and they saw the potential with it. And Paul's story about him flipping land and making. What was it? I forget the number. Maybe 15, $20,000. Without even putting a dime out of his own pocket. That was pretty cool. And Vin Smith telling his story. I've got all of it video, so I'll put it up there. But everyone there that's doing deals and sending out offers, everyone's crushing it. Everyone. And we all support each other. It was really nice. What did people kind of ask you during the event? What were some of the frequently asked questions?

I didn't get a whole bunch of questions. It was neat. Just so everybody knows, I do really appreciate the feedback that I received at the event. The way people talk to me, it's an affirmation for guys like Mark and I who do kind of put our neck out there and do this podcast. It is affirmation to know that you guys do get something from this podcast and us talking. So that was really neat for me. I got to meet a lot of people, told a few people my story. Obviously, me being involved in a mining project and sort of like where land's taken me has been really cool just to kind of share that story with other people. But I just, you know, it was just neat talking. I was asking a lot of questions more than I was receiving Them, because I like to know how people are doing and where this investor's toolkit has taken them.

Yeah, it was really a great event, and things, for the most part, I thought, went smoothly because it's not like I'm a professional speaker, and I've done this a whole lot. Right. Yeah.

There's absolutely no doubt you're not a professional speaker. I'm just kidding. I have to admit, I was thoroughly impressed. I thought I was going to have to rip you and be like, okay, Mark, give me the microphone. I'm talking.

I know.

I mean, and I told you that the first day. I said, dude, gosh, that was really impressive because I got up there and just so everybody knows, I don't speak. I mean, I do. I sit on some boards and I do talk to people, 10, 15, 20, but I sit in a chair and talk. I don't get up in front of people and do a presentation or kind of talk about my story. I got choked up a couple times because there's parts of my life that, you know, I did come from some humble beginnings, and I did take care of a little boy with cerebral palsy when I was 20, 21 years old. A lot of those things are sort of very prescient in my life. And so talking about it in front of a group of 50 or 60 or 70 people isn't that easy. Again, it was just neat. But Mark, from a composer standpoint, definitely did a heck of a lot better than I did.

Yeah. Thank you. It was funny because Thursday night when I got in, I was just a wreck. All I could think of was, okay, is the projector going to work? Are we going to have enough coffee? What's the. I didn't. Because I got in late. I'm like. I didn't even see the room first. And I was just so nervous. And then when I got in there and saw. And not just saw everybody, but just, like, felt that warmth and the nerves went away. And I was able to really present the information, I thought, in a, for the most part, a very logical way. And we did a lot of Q and A as well. It was really more me talking Q and A and a kind of mastermind where people would share their stories. And the room was smarter than just me.

Yeah, there was. There was a lot of. I mean, there's no doubt about it. There was probably about 55 people in that room that were smarter than we were, including a couple of doctors that were sitting in that room that made us, you know, just listening to them speak you're just like, holy mackerel. These guys are intelligent. But again, it goes to show you that, you know, they look at their lifestyle and as intelligent as they are and as much schooling as they've gone through, they want something different. They want passive income, they want a lifestyle that they can control.

Yeah, I mean, everybody wants out of the grind. And today it's not like what it was in the 80s for doctors. I mean, it is a grind, a high paid grind, but solo economic dependency. They're not working, they're not making any money. And they really saw the value of the one time sale. Getting recurring revenue with an asset that is so simple. No toilets, no trash, no tenants, no termites, raw land. It's fantastic. And it was just so wonderful for me to see everyone kind of like the light bulb go off and get it right. There's nothing more discouraging. When I'm talking to somebody who's just always focused on single family homes and I start talking about raw land and you see their eyes glaze over like, no, no, you don't have to do all this work to do it. Most people, when they think raw land, they think, oh, I've got to do phase one environmental, phase two environmental. And they think, oh, the highest and best uses go vertical. And I'm not in that business and I don't want to be a developer and I want to take that kind of risk. And I'm thinking, no, it's not that difficult at all.

A friend of mine was telling me today that one of his clients just went through a program, a flip program, a house flipping program. I'm thinking to myself, oh gosh, you know, how about a market that's saturated and pretty much dried up? The house floating market. And in reality, when you've got 1500 companies competing not only buy and sell flips, but then another 1500 that are competing to sell you a program on how to do it. You think about just a tipping point or a saturated market. You look at something like this, there really isn't competition. I mean, there's no one that knows how to do it better than you and I. We've been doing it for the last 15 years and we have a lot of the secrets that people need and contacts to, to make these things happen. So I think it's really, it's a huge benefit to have something where you do have a niche market and people get it and people don't have to go, gosh, what about all those other people? There's just, there's no competition.

Yeah. Yeah, it was cool. So Vegas was great. We will do another event. I'm thinking we might do Vegas again either late August, early September. So put that in your calendar right now. If you missed the first Land Geek Boot Camp or you want to go to the next one, you're welcome to come and bring a friend because we'd really like to have even more people at the next event. So everyone that's invested in the investors toolkit gets two free tickets. But we're really going to start marketing the event now and get more people there so that there's just more opportunities for people that want to change their lives and either work this business part time, maybe they want to really go into this big like a business and quit their job like I did and do it full time. There's. There's no better way to really have all that information except when it's live. Right? I mean, home study courses are great, but there's nothing like being able to talk to the person that created it and other people in the room and get that information. Wouldn't you agree?

I would totally agree. There's going to be a couple. I'm going to make a couple promises now for that September conference. One is I'm going to promise you that we're going to have some different, at least one or two different speakers that are going to be really compelling to kind of maybe talk about some marketing aspects and we'll figure it out. I'm just making a promise now. Mark's probably looking at me like, you better shut your mouth.

We'll see if we can get. You know, we had Wayne Allen Root at this event and he. I mean, that guy is unbelievable. I don't know how old he is, but I've never met a more energetic human being in my entire life. Have you?

Maybe me, but probably after like one Red Bull.

Yeah. I mean, he was like Duran on 10 Red Bulls. He was unbelievable.

That's funny.

He had such passion coming out and the whole branding program. I hope everyone that was there enjoyed him. He's kind of a big deal.

He is kind of a big deal.

Yeah. If you don't know him, he ran for 2008 vice presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party. And he's. He's like the Jimmy the Greek of Vegas. And he does. He does it. Does a lot of. He's a capitalist evangelist. So Google Wayne Allen root. He was at the event speaking on day two, and I was really impressed with him.

Yeah. There's one more promise I need to make and that will be that. LandHub will at least have phase one, potentially phase two, done by the conference. So there'll be some sweet coupon codes with that. Hopefully there some promotional codes to utilize Landhub. So that was my little self promotion. So I. Mark.

No, no. You know what I like? You know what I like about that is you put a drop dead date so you have to have it done in the next 90 days. And if you set that goal, you'll get it done. But what happens is if we don't have a time bound goal to set, then things get in the way. Life gets in the way. Lauren says, hey, can you go watch the kids? And you lose focus. And now that you've actually publicly put it out there, that land hub will be done phase two in the next 90 days. You've got to do it right.

Exactly. I have no choice.

But I think you should write it down too. It's not a goal unless it's written down.

I put it next to the picture of my Tesla on my wall over.

Here on the vision board. You're going to haze me about the vision board and the Tesla? Come on.

Oh, you're hilarious. You still have that? No. You buy your Tesla. That's right.

I have not bought the test.

Liar.

I have not bought the Tesla. You know, it's on the to do list though.

You know what, it's so funny because we're talking about a couple. You know, I actually want to talk about a couple things about Tesla because it kind of evolves land. I'll tell you in a second. Why. Okay, you know, you know the whole. We're talking about like how Prius is better for the environment. What happens when, when those batteries don't work anymore?

You know? You know what, that is a good question. That's a, that's an excellent question. I don't know what happens with the batteries, I'm sure, but I'm sure there's a, an environmentally sound way to replace those batteries. I think those Tesla batteries, long time.

You park them in the Yucca Mountain facility where.

Yeah, yeah, I'm not, I'm not gonna get a Tesla for a long time because.

I.

That's just not me to go out and spend that kind of money on a car. But it is on the to do list because I believe in their story. I believe that driving an all electric vehicle is good for the environment and it jives with my worldview. So that's really more where I'm coming from than the ego side of it that I have to have a cool car like that.

Yeah. Now I don't want to get, I don't get in trouble, but there I, I also question like, is there, are there any EMF ramifications? Like are there? I assume it's pretty high in emf. I'm just saying, you know, go to.

The Tesla dealership I have if I want something. You always have to take the wind out of my sales. Why can't I just want a Tesla?

Sorry.

Oh, I'm sorry. Emf, the batteries. It's good for the environment.

Look, I got a couple little kids. Oh, you do too. Anyway, so.

Oh my gosh. Anyway, I mean, okay, let's, let's imagine for a second that one battery is not going to have as detrimental effect on the environment as your gas guzzler.

My gas guzzler. Just so you guys all know, I'm driving an Elio.

An Elio, Whatever.

Look it up on your computer. It gets 84 miles a gallon and it's $6,800. Right. If you guys haven't seen that, that's my, that's my tip of the week. Eliomotors on. The guy's out of, out of Phoenix, I think. And basically the guy has built, I think I'm like a motorcycle chassis. A two person car front and back. And they go into production I think in the next six months and they bought like, I think a big, big manufacturing plant in, in Detroit or revamp.

I like it built in America.

Yeah. So it's really cool. It's, it's about sixty hundred bucks and it's a one seater in the front.

It sounds real safe.

It's. Oh, it's the, that's what's crazy. It's very safe.

How can you see.

Just look it up.

Stop.

Stop trying to fight with me here. Secondly, what's really interesting is, and I, and I, I was mentioning that there's some, there's some land implications with Tesla. So Tesla is looking at a very big facility in four different states. Arizona and Nevada are two of them.

Right.

They are seriously looking at a place in Nevada. I'm, I'm praying it's close to my property. That I have about 6 or 7,000 acres in Crest Valley. But I don't think that's the case. I think they're looking in a little town called Fernley, Nevada.

Fernley. I know Fernley really well. So. Okay, so let's pretend that this comes to fruition. How can we jump on that now? I mean, do you think we should speculate right now. I'll tell you what I would do right now is start sending out a mailing campaign and start sending out offers to everybody that was back taxes and Fernley.

Yep. Yep. Or you just find it, get their names and numbers, give them a call. I mean, like, look, it's. You know, it's maybe a little early and a little speculative to do that, but, I mean, I think they're. I don't know how many employees are bringing in seven or 10,000 employees, something like that. So bringing in several. Several. Several thousand employees to the area. The infrastructure is a great. It's a great place from a growth perspective. They can grow in friendly. You know, Reno is sort of. You know, I don't. I mean, they're looking for a lot of land, and Reno doesn't have a ton of it, so they need to be a little bit on the outskirts. It's about 30 miles. 30 miles north, northeast of Reno.

Yeah. You know what I want to ask you, because I get this question a lot from newbies, is where do you think the best place is to start?

I would say Arizona, New Mexico or Nevada.

So you wouldn't say your own backyard? No, Well, I wouldn't say that either. Especially if you live in an area like on the east coast that just. The prices are just too high.

Yeah, no, it's. It would be. I would. I would focus on air. I mean, look, the Western U.S. you know, Colorado, Arizona. I mean, there's. There's about six states that I would look at. You know, Texas. Texas is good, but Texas has so much land and.

Yeah, Texas is great, though. People love Texas.

From a tax perspective. You know, Oregon's good. You know, I don't know much about Idaho, but there are several states that I would. That I would definitely look at away. I mean, if you're on the east coast and you're looking at buying and people like, oh, gosh, that's a big risk. Well, look, Mark and I did it. Mark and I were in Nevada when I was living in San Diego, partially part time in Nevada, but I didn't buy it because it was in my backyard. I bought land because that was. You know, we put a very good deal together. But when I was in college, I was buying in New Mexico, so I would jump on a plane and I would show up to the auction. Nowadays, you can probably get by without doing that.

Right, right. So, you know, speaking of Texas, I got a call during the event, and it was pretty interesting because it was from a woman that has property in this one county in Texas. And she's like, oh, I've got 5.16 acres here. I paid 4,500 for it, but I would just liquidate it for Dollo $1,100. And she leaves this on my voicemail and I'm thinking to myself, man, if it weren't for, you know, our experience by doing this for so long, that would have been just throw money thrown away. Because in this area, in this county, if you don't have 10 acres or more, they won't record the deed. Yeah. So like in that rural area, the county attorney, the recorder gets the deed, kicks it off to the county attorney, the county attorney looks at it and says, no, that's too rural. And because of that it has to be 10 acres or more. They don't record the deed.

Wow.

Now I learned this the hard way a few years ago, but luckily I had a joining lot so it didn't really affect me financially. But I was just laughing to myself like, oh my gosh, if she sent that voicemail to one of my coaching students and they bought it, they wouldn't be able to sell it. They'd kick back the deed.

Yep, yep. That's interesting. Interesting. I actually was on that same topic, but a little different. I was looking back at some of the auctions I went through New Mexico and how good some of those properties were and how cheap I sold them.

You sold them too cheaply.

Oh my gosh. And there are certain people out there that just. And we talked about this briefly when we mastermind inside that conference about how certain people just were all about a really slim margin, just wanted to make 10 or 15%. We know some people out there like that that just don't. It's just a business, it's a margin game. And those are the guys end up stealing property from.

Well, I mean, you know, and you can look at other business models because like, let's look at another passive model, right? What if I wanted to build a self serve car wash, Right. Have you seen those car washes? They're $3, $5, $7. And then you just put in your card and maybe it's an extra dollar upsell if they're going to dry it. So that's, you build that thing one time and those, those car washes have tremendous margins and there's very little overhead. And so it's kind of similar in the sense that you build it once and then you just keep getting the recurring revenue. Now there's maintenance involved. You got to Keep up with the soap and this and that. But it's certainly not, there's not as much brain damage on these self serve car washes as there are with like a traditional business, for example. Right. Or via an apartment building even. It's an interesting real estate play. But what happens is, is that you can't protect that area. So someone else can build a car wash that might be happy making 15% instead of 30%. And now you've just split the, the car population in one area. And the guy that's, I'm making a killing, he just saw his whole business cut in half from the competition. And luckily for us, we don't see that a whole lot.

I agree. I think it, when it comes to real estate, I think people are a little bit more intelligent about their approach to sales and how they market it. And it's just to me, you know, it's totally different. You're looking at something that it's not, you know, it's not a resource. Like land is right.

And every piece of land is unique. So it can, you know, be a marketing play in the sense that you can add more value, you can make improvements to it. And so the guy that's just liquidating it online and making it look like it's not very valuable because his, he doesn't care about his margin for whatever reason. You can go in there and you can completely blow the guy out of the water because you can, you can attract the buyer that has the worldview. Oh, I want this, this and this for my land. That stuff is junk. But this looks great even though it might be in the same vicinity.

Yeah.

And so that positioning becomes critical and once you learn how to do that with, with marketing and we talked about that a whole lot this weekend.

Yeah.

Who do you want to be? Yep, absolutely. So, Duran, I know you're tired from Vegas, but you know what I want to ask you? What is your tip of the week? We're at that point.

There is a little website and also an app that you can take on the road with you. And what it allows you to do is it allows you to pop in GPS's and it pulls up these GPSs and it uses a topographic map to do so. And the app is called Gaia. G A I A G P S.

Wait a second, I check this out. G A G A I A gps GPS dot com. Yep, I'm going there now.

Perfect.

Wow, this looks really good. Look at this.

So when you're looking at property and you've got, and you've got GPS coordinates. You pop it in. This also helps you find GPS coordinates. If you're on a property, you can mark it. It's a very neat app. I think it costs, I want to say, 10 bucks or 20 bucks or something like that. I'm not sure. Let me see. It's 20 bucks.

20 bucks.

But a pretty cool app.

That's really cool. That's a nice app. That's pretty expensive for an app, but it's worth it, isn't it?

It is. It is worth it.

Because think of the marketing. You go on the property, or you have your VA or your Craigslist gig person go on the property, and they have to get this app. So figure it's an extra 20 bucks. So maybe it's 50 bucks for them, 20 bucks for the app, but then they have the coordinates and you can use that person again and again in that same area. I mean, how much is a GPS unit to buy?

I think a GPS, you probably get a decent one for 100 bucks. But I think these work. I think this app is a little bit better. So you're talking 20 bucks, but you put on your phone. It works just like a gps.

It works just like a gps.

Yeah. So pretty cool.

Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's got a social aspect to it. You put the photos up.

Yeah.

So I'm looking at Bryce Fairview right now. Wow. And I can see the topo map. This would be great for marketing. They include images. Wow. This is incredible.

You're welcome, Mark. And everyone listening, Duran, Once again, I'm.

Really paying it forward. Thank you, sir, with this tip. Nice job, buddy.

Thank you.

Nice job. Well, my tip of the week is not nearly as cool as Gaia GPS.com but if utilized correctly, is going to make you a ton more money than Joran's tip. My tip is lists.nextmark.com and so this is a fantastic way to create like a mailing list campaign for marketing. Right. So you can then drill down into your consumers and you can say, okay, I've got a piece of property I own and in Texas, and I want to really focus on people that own alternative investments. Gold, silver, bullion, whatever. So I want to just send out a mailing about my land just to these people that have these attributes. They might be, you know, have income of this amount and they might have this demographic. So you can really drill down and. And then, you know, they subscribe to these types of magazines and it's amazing. And then you send out your mailing and they'll even help you with the mailing. And it's great. So it's easy, it's free, it works.

And the Danny, get it nextmark.com what is it again?

Lists.nextmark N E X T M A R K.com I'll have a link to it. So by the time this podcast comes out, I will be on the road and taking a little family vacation to the Midwest. My wife's best friend is getting married and then we're going to go to a resort in the Wisconsin Dells. The kids are going to go play in like this water park area. So it's going to be great.

I was hoping you would tell me you're taking the family to Sizzler and now you're going.

Well, we might go to Sizzler. Kids want that.

I think there's one Sizzler left and I don't know where it is.

Do people still go to the Sizzler?

I don't know. I'm leaving too. On Monday, I'll be in Florida for 10 days, taking the family to Disney World, hanging out. I actually met my wife in Orlando. For those that don't know me that well or didn't have a chance to listen to part of my story, I met my wife in Orlando about almost nine years ago.

Nine years. I remember that.

At a trade show. And so we're going back to Orlando. My wife's family is there, so we get to spend some time with them and then catch up with some old friends. And so that should be cool. We're going to be there for, gosh, almost two weeks. So that's pretty neat.

Has Lauren had her 30s yet?

No, she's still a couple years away, buddy. Oh my gosh, she's getting super old.

Yeah, Yeah, I know. Yeah, so I'm getting old. If you want more tips, tricks, techniques on how to make additional income actively and passively by buying and selling raw land, go to www.thelandgeek.com, download the passive income Blueprint, get the ebook how to Avoid the Three Faded Land Buying Mistakes, and of course, get this podcast delivered each week to your email inbox and listen to Duran Hazby each and every week. Even though he's probably not on every week. But it's always a good time. So give Duran some love. Check out landhub.com, a great resource for you to market your property. Check out his wholesale land@reserveland.com and if Duran doesn't have anything you want, check out my properties, frontierpropertiesusa.com Duran Are we good?

I think we're good, Mark. I'm looking forward to our little vacations.

Yeah. Just another shout out. Thank you so much again to everyone that attended the two day Land Geek Boot Camp. We will be having another event late August, early September, so be on the lookout for it. If you want details now, email the office. Supportthelandgeek.com and we will let you know as soon as that event is booked where you need to go and what you need to be. And Duran, thanks a lot. Are we good?

We're good. Thank you all. Thank you all again. I appreciate it.

All right, we'll see everybody next week. Thanks a lot.

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.