The Land Geek Podcast #62

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 with your favorite real estate website, Nichy niche land site, www.thelandgeek.do. that's right. Bookmark it. And today's guest is no longer a guest because he's now I'm gonna call him a regular.

How about a fixture?

A fixture. Almost like, you know how when you get. You break your arm and you put on the cast and then they take the cast off and you feel like, you know, yeah, the cast was kind of a pain, but now you miss it. That's how I feel about when I don't podcast with Duran Duran Frazier from landhub.com and reserveland.com Living the dream in Carlsbad. How are you, my brother?

Mark? I'm just excited that I got to see you recently.

I know, that was great. I was excited to be in 72 degree weather. What was that coffee place we went to?

Lofty Coffee.

Lofty Coffee. I'm. I'm still jonesing for it. That place was unbelievable. I'm not, I'm not exaggerating. I got in at what, seven something in the morning?

Yeah, seven o'.

Clock. Yeah. Dran and I had a important meeting. It went all. It went all day and went all night, and we sat for like the first, what, four hours at Lofty Coffee doing strategy. And I'm telling you, that place never, never was slow. It was unbelievable to watch.

Yeah, it's. It's interesting. It's a coffee shop that I've enjoyed frequenting for the last. I would say year, year, year and a half. But. And most people know that I love going there. It's my office away from my office. But some of this, it's a. It's organic coffee. So most of you people go like, who cares about organic coffee? I drink Folgers for breakfast. If you drink Folgers, just read the ingredients, please.

That is scary stuff, isn't it? You can have so much like cockroach in your coffee grounds before the FDA says it's not okay.

FDA says everything's okay.

Yeah, exactly.

So anyway. But no, it's a great, great episode. So, yeah, Mark and I got to spend a good day together. Mark got to experience what it's like to buy a new dishwasher with me.

I did. That was very fun.

Yeah, it was a half hour actual nightmare. I knew exactly what dishwasher I wanted to, and it took the guy about 30 minutes to figure out how to sell it to me.

That's right. That's right. But you got a really top of the line one. That was really nice.

That was nice. So anyways, Mark and I were discussing before the podcast started, what do we talk about today? And I think we came up with a grand solution. So, Mark, you want to introduce the topic today?

What do you want to talk about today?

I don't know, that maybe you had mentioned deeds.

You want to talk about deeds? You know I mentioned deeds. I was on the Facebook page, and it was. The podcast was the podcast page. It was on one of our pages, someone said, yeah, I like the information. Just wish you guys would talk about more specific information. So I thought, okay, let's talk about something really, really specific. Different types of deeds. Because this person that emailed in wanted to know about the different types of deeds. I'm pretty sure we talked about this, but we can talk about it. And it's in my three fatal Land Buying mistakes ebook.

I think this guy might be a little lazy, Mark. I don't know what his name is. Or maybe he just doesn't want to spend $9.97 and join your program. It's possible, which is free. Information is great. Mark and I can only give so much before we have to start charging, so.

What are you talking about? We can just give and give and give.

That's true. That's true. We're like land. Santa Clauses.

Land. This land. Land. Mother Teresa's perfect.

I like it.

Changing the world. One land investor at a time, One.

Parcel at a time.

One parcel at a time, you know? You know what's funny about that, though, is if we didn't charge the information, no one would do it and no one would appreciate it.

You are so marketable, it's insane. I mean, the minute you get in front of a camera, it's like everybody's just, like, giving you money.

What are you talking about? I wish.

Your coffee talk. I mean, it's crazy.

Oh, yeah, coffee talk, sure.

I mean, gosh, you put that up there and you get a million views in a morning.

I know. Yeah, exactly. People. People just love the sound of my voice.

That's crazy. You know, it is true, though. You do sound really good. And I sound like I'm always. What's the word? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe I've got too much going on. Maybe I sound preoccupied half the time.

Well, I'm always hazing you. You're not focused. You need to be more focused.

I am focused. I am focused on everything 24 7. That makes sense.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right, so let's just. Let's just do a quick rundown of different types of deeds. So your least. Should we go from worst to best or best to worst? What do you think?

You know? You know, why don't we start with. You know, would be interesting, Marcus, to kind of walk through the process of. When we first started the business. We probably talked about it before, but when we first got in the business, how. How valuable just a simple quitclaim deed was?

Well, in what sense?

Well, because, I mean, when I say valuable, meaning, like it. It gets the job done very quickly. Right?

Like, on which side of it, if you're buying or if you're selling.

If you're selling.

Yeah. If you're selling, it's great. But not if you're buying.

No, I agree. I agree. But we're not really talking about buyers at this point. We're talking about selling.

Well, it was kind of confusing, actually.

That's why.

That's why I'm asking.

You got it. Okay.

Lunch yet? So I've got to kind of help them out here.

Totally. Guys, I. I have very low blood sugar right now. I'm drinking a glass of lemon water for my lunch.

That's right.

So why don't you go to the process Mark, and why don't you start talking about deeds, and then I'll just shut my mouth? How does that sound?

No, no pressure there. Why do I do. Why do I do a lecture on deeds for this podcast? Okay.

Your start. Go.

All right. By the way, I do miss you. And I do.

Thanks.

I do miss Carlsbad. Okay, so you want to do worst? Okay, let's just talk about the worst one, which is the quitclaim deed.

Yeah, right?

Yep.

That's perfect. Go.

Okay, so a quitclaim deed basically warrants the buyer nothing. So typically among related parties, they'll do a quit claim deed. But if you're not related and your seller wants to give you a quitclaim deed, that is an indication that something could be wrong in the chain of title with that property dream. Would you agree?

Or that the seller is just simply lazy and has no clue what he's doing.

It's. That's possible, too. Or they have a bad attorney telling them, oh, you should. You don't want to warrant anything and give them a quitclaim deed.

Well, you know, which is possible because.

You know, your attorney wants you not to take any risk.

I mean, I think you can drive down to your local Walmart and pick up a quit claim deed for, like, $3. So that's right.

Yeah.

Your staples in the form section. So that's why I said, I mean, it's a simple way to transfer land. It's definitely not the safest legal way to transfer land, but it's for people that don't get it. You know, quitclaim is the most informal way to transfer a property, I would say. And again, let me just reiterate. We are not attorneys. We are not CPAs. We are just giving information that we think is right. Correct, Mark?

Yeah, we're not giving legal advice here. Yes, for sure.

So, and these are things that we've done over the years, and you're gonna hear stuff that you guys are. You know, we generally will have people go, hey, are you sure about this? Most of the things that we discussed, we've researched. We know quite well. We've dealt with. We've paid the attorney fee, so you guys don't have to. But there are some instances where we're not 100% certain. We are about every aspect of the deed, and we're always learning, too. And every state is different as well, Right?

Exactly. So basically, a quitclaim deed is an instrument of conveyance of real property that passes any title claim or interest that the grantor has in the premises, but does not make any representations as to the validity of such title. And that, my friends, is from the Free Legal Dictionary online. So basically, yeah, here's your property, and you're taking all the risk is essentially what it is.

Yeah.

Okay, so that's the worst type of deed if you are a buyer. It's the best type if you're the seller, because you're not taking any liability at all with what you're selling. Yeah, but we don't really teach that. Now. The second type of deed is a special warranty deed. Right. A special warranty deed gives your buyer a little bit more assurances, but not much more because it only applies to the time that you've owned the property. So I've owned the property for a year. I give Duran a special warranty deed, and basically I'm warranting that during the time of my ownership. I haven't placed any liens or encumbrances on that title, but the entire chain of title. I'm not Going to warrant at all. At all. So that's all on Duran. He's taking the risk for that. Except for the time that's been in my ownership. When I first got started, I used special warranty deeds because that's, you know, we were buying tax defaulted property and we didn't want to take the risk. And that's what our attorney told us to do. I know a lot of sellers that still use special warranty deeds, and it's. It's kind of the best of both worlds. You're giving your buyer the assurance that you haven't done anything on the property in the title, but you're also kind of protecting yourself by saying, hey, I'm not going to warrant the entire chain of title. Mm. What do you think? You still use special warranty deeds or use.

I stay with the grant sale bargain deeds.

Okay. And that's kind of like a Nevada warranty deed.

Yep.

Right. Okay.

So grant bargain sale. I'm low blood sugar. I said it incorrectly.

Grant bargain sale.

Yeah, I said grant sale bargain.

Grant sale bargain. That's okay.

Yes.

All right. And then the grand poobah of all the deeds is the warranty deed, which if you're the buyer, you really want, because you're basically the seller's holding his feet to the fire and saying, hey, during the entire chain of title, there are no deeds or no deeds I haven't eaten. There's no liens or encumbrances on this title. And you're kind of opening yourself up to some risk if you don't know about the entire chain of title. So now on larger transactions, of course you're going to go through a title company, but sometimes there's smaller transactions and I'll do a warranty deed and, you know, it could come back, but since I've been doing this since 2001, thousands and thousands of transactions, I haven't had any issues. What about you?

I have not had a single issue. You and I have purchased. We've talked about this on another podcast. We purchased property in various parts of the country that we had to quiet title for the next owner to be able to warranty the property to someone else.

Right, right. And you know, it's less expensive than Quiet Title now is using tax titleservices.com. oh, really? Yeah. I had the owner on the podcast. It's these guys do their research. It's quicker, it's less expensive than doing quiet title. It's great.

You know, I was just thinking, you know, you have these people, you Obviously. You know, I thought I was a fixture on your show, and now you're telling me you have other people on your podcast.

Okay, so they're guests.

That makes me really angry.

You're not a guest anymore. You're a fixture.

You know, what I was gonna say is that we should actually collaborate as a group, you know, like you, me, and Ted Turner, or you, me, and, you know, Steve Wynn. Is that his name?

Sure.

So just having these guys on the podcast would be great, so that we could get, you know, a little bit more of a collaborative tone to our podcast. I think. Personally, I think we're really boring to people, but maybe I'm wrong.

So I. I don't. I mean, I think it'd be. It'd be great to have an occasional Mastermind podcast and just so people can see what we do on our Masterminds.

Yeah.

And go through some of those issues.

Yeah, no, I agree.

That'd be kind of fun. But then again, you get a free month anyways if you sign up for it, so you can listen to them anyways. Yeah.

But I do agree. I think we should start charging people for our nonsense.

What do you think we could. I don't know what the market's like for nonsense right now.

I heard it's really good, in fact.

Is it strong?

A pretty penny for nonsense right now.

Yeah. I just did a Facebook promotion on nonsense.

If anybody can do a Facebook advertising post, it's me. I'll see if I can get people to pay for nonsense.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah. So last time we talked, you were doing Facebook stuff. What's going on with that?

I've been doing quite well just working on conversion campaigns or on just the conversion aspect of the campaign, and just different. It's just so interesting when you're trying to target a specific demographic and how you do it. And one of the things that our listeners would be intrigued by is really understanding one thing that we all need to learn is how to build a funnel. Mark has built this really great funnel system, everybody. So, you know, from the very top to the bottom, who your buyer is or who your person is. So I've just been really trying to focus on what converts best and who's my target market for a specific property. So it's just really interesting going through the process and learning how to do that. And then at the top of your funnel, looking at it, going, okay, from this Facebook lead, where do I send them? From there, where do they go? And it's just interesting I wish there was like a mark has a great system in place and sort of teaches you through his program too of how to do it, which is neat. And something that you can utilize outside of LAN in any business model is just building funnel systems and knowing what to do with it.

Oh yeah. I mean it's, you know, it's constant tweaking of that funnel too, by the way. You don't just build a funnel and then say, okay, it's, it's done. Because marketing always has to be tweaked. It needs to be tested. You have to do split testing and just see what converts better. But from, from the 10,000ft view of it, basically you're looking at a funnel, right? So you want to get as many people and as many qualified people as you can into your funnel. So I don't believe in getting people who like iPads into my funnel. Right. Because everyone wants an iPad or if you're a Microsoft person, a Surface. Right. So those people, I don't want my funnel because you'll see, you know, on Facebook, promotions for a free iPad, just opt in here with your name and email address and then we're going to start emailing you information. So in our business, I'd rather it be land related. So the promotion might be, you know, get this free white paper on how to buy and sell raw land or you know, get a $250 coupon on a piece of property, get access to our, you know, our best properties that haven't been listed yet, that kind of thing. And then you're building in your funnel targeted, qualified people that you know are interested land. And then from there you start sending them valuable information, building rapport. Right. And then you ask them for their business, but not before then.

Yep. It's funny, you think about too like how Facebook works and operates and just in general how we view things. I mean, if you're trying to get somebody to opt in for something, you sort of have to give them something in return. Right? You know.

Yeah, that ethical bribe.

Yeah. And, and you know, when you see your buddy goes, hey, I, you know, I mean, how many of us have friends that like every five minutes either they're on Twitter telling you they just went to the bathroom or, or made a turkey sandwich, you're like, bro, nobody cares about your turkey sandwich. And I certainly don't care if you go to the bathroom. And, and, and people, you know, in their own minds, they're, you know, they're, they're trying to create, you know, their, I guess their own brand on Facebook. But there are certain things that attract people and certain things that turn us off. And like Mark said, the one thing that does turn everybody on is an ethical bribe.

Right, right. So what's our ethical bribe for Land Hub? What are you doing with your Land Hub funnel?

So right now I'm in some heavy discussions as we sort of proceed into our next big element of Land Hub, which is basically, we're bringing in a very robust component. It is going to be. And Mark and I have kind of looked at it, it's really neat. So for those listeners who are listening, basically what I'm bringing in is a component that is a customer relationship manager with an email marketing component. You can build websites on it. You can track basically your funnel system through your email marketing campaign. You have various different groups, you can communicate one of the really neat things. And Mark and I haven't talked about it, but one of the really unique components is we can actually take certain people in certain programs that Mark's working on and put them all together so they can all communicate and actually talk. Like a Facebook group within LandHub.

Like an intranet, Right?

Correct.

Correct. That's cool.

So we're building this. I think I'll have it finished. Today is July 7th, I think. Or no, what is today?

Today's the 7th.

Okay. So we'll have that out by probably the end of July, beginning of August. And once, once that's released, we'll be at a point where we'll have a very huge value add for anybody that joins. And we're gonna have some discount rates to those customers that are part of Mark's program. And so it's just interesting, just, you know, kind of as you build out. But my ethical bribe is giving giving land sellers that extra software component to not only track the sales process, but also, you know, value adds in terms of syndicating the property.

Yeah, I love that idea because now it's a one stop shop for all my land selling needs. Now what about buying, can I use it for that or is that a different.

Correct. So we're going to, you know, it's the natural progression of where land held will go is it will actually get to a point where a lot of traffic is coming on the site due to, you know, a number of land sellers, due to the marketing that we're going to be doing. And we'll probably have a lot of buyers on there looking for property. So I think on both sides, we've already got a lot of organic traffic of sellers that are listing property and some, that I've seen some of the prices that have come on the site pretty aggressive. Some people looking just to dump property. So there are going to be deals in there. You just got to like any, like any other land website, you got to find the deals.

Right, Right, exactly. But it's, it's, it's going to save so much time and energy. It's, it's, it's going to be great. I'm really excited about it. Especially the just, just the fact that I can live in one spot and do all my, my marketing because right now I'm all over the place. My marketing. You know what I mean? Yeah.

I'm not solving, I mean I'm not solving a huge problem. Right. In a sense that, that some of the stuff is not already out there. What I'm doing is I'm bringing it all in one central hub. So you have the ability to do it. I mean, could you, could you go find a way to, you know, could you go get an email marketing platform? Sure, yeah. You can go to mailchimp. Com, that's fine. We've talked about it. But to be able to take that email right from your listing where somebody emails you and circulate it right back into an email marketing component from OneHub. The platform is very robust. In fact, there's a learning curve that we're going to go through a little bit. We're going to have video explainers to get through it, but there's a lot to offer. So once you learn and understand it, you know, it's going to be very powerful for a land seller.

Why don't we do a training webinar and just, just do like a screencast and show people exactly how this works and, and why, why you want this as opposed to what I'm doing, which is all piecemeal. You know, I've got AWeber for the email marketing automation and I'll use the optimized press theme or lead pages for my landing pages and you know, putting ads out on all the different websites so I could really just have everything living in one spot. Right? Yep. That's amazing.

Yeah, I'm excited. You know, again it's, it's been a work in progress, but I think we're close to a point where I've got something really viable for our customers beyond just search. And I think that's value in itself on it where you can, you know, you can find, or where you can list your property and people can find it. So having that Extra added component. And, you know, we're still talking pricing. I've got it. You know, the software is not going to be super cheap. I mean, my goal is to keep everything, including all your listings, at under $100 a month with the software, which.

Which is very competitive because if I want to list a land and farm, it's 50 bucks, and that's all I get, is listings.

Yeah. And land watching is a hundred bucks now a month.

Is land watch 100 bucks now.

Yeah. Unlimited listings, 100 bucks. So. So we may eventually, depending on, you know, how robust this platform gets, because obviously there's a lot of costs involved. But. But yeah, so it's. It's gonna be a pretty enjoyable process as we. As we launch and kind of see where things are at. But I'm excited and I know that Mark's gonna be excited and just to have, you know, just to have all these pieces in one place and a place for all of the Land Key customers to use.

So, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna send out a little mailing here for a coupon code for everybody to get started. And it's. It could be a game changer. If you get that API working with Craigslist, that's a game changer. Don't you think?

It is. And that's. And, you know, I'm sad to report that we had, you know, we were. We were two steps forward, one step back for several months, and then we just had a kind of an interesting setback last week. And so we're just trying to solve it. But again, that's the nature of the development business and trying to get things done. And it is what it is. We just keep pushing forward. But which is why I'm excited to introduce something that we have. We now have something really viable and. And Craigslist will just add on top of that.

Right, right. So from an entrepreneurial aspect, what do you think's been the biggest challenge as far as this startup for you and Land Hub?

I would say the fundraising component's the challenge. I've always, in every business that I've ever done either, done private financing in a real estate business. Mark and I took down some large chunks of land with private financing. But raising capital is a challenge in this. In this climate. And that's, I think, from a standpoint of taking, you know, real estate, which is sort of off an offline component and technology and sort of merging them together. It's a challenge because not everybody understands what you're trying to accomplish. And I do, and I Understand it very well, but not everyone thinks the same way I do. So it's been a challenge. I haven't presented my. My investor pitch to many people. The ones that I have were sold. But it's like any other business. You got to close and closing takes, attorneys, closing takes. There's just so much involved, and I get to, like, second base or third base. And I'm just like, I'm exhausted. And then, you know, there's a reason why, you know, your lead investor pulls out or this. So, you know, in my mind, I'm like, I prepared for those challenges because I, you know, I had. I had the money to get me through to hopefully push this thing cash flow positive without having to go raise capital. But if I had capital to come in and help me build it, I would do that. So it's just, you know, being an entrepreneur is very challenging, but I would say the fundraising process was definitely the hardest part of it.

Yeah. That's interesting. That's interesting. All right, I'm gonna put you on the spot now. It's that time. So, Duran, what is your tip of the week?

Well, as most people know, we've talked about Facebook the last couple of podcasts.

Right.

Website called pagemodo. M O D O P A G.

E M O D O D as in David O dot com. Okay. Pagemodo.com I'm there right now.

Make a custom Facebook business page for free. Easy apps to grow your Facebook page, turn visitors into leads and leads into customers. This is a really cool website. It's a newer technology, but again, we're focused on where are our customers. And Generally speaking, unfortunately, 90% of the population is on Facebook 80% of the time.

Right, Right. So, yeah, this is great. And it has a nice little photo editor to create in your. Your visual posts. No design skills required. So I. I hired a company that was part of infusionsoft to help me with my Facebook campaign. Let's just say I paid a little bit more than free. I'm embarrassed to say what I paid now that I see Paige Moto. So. And really what I was gonna do was just hire some, like, a designer on Fiverr, because, you know, those for five bucks, they'll. They'll design a nice post. This is better because you can just do yourself. Yep. And they take all the work out of it. I love this.

Yeah. It's a software. And now I think. I mean, obviously there's. They charge money somewhere, so we have to figure out where they charge money.

Yeah. Where are they making Their money. Here we go.

Their plans. Their plans. If you go to their plan button, 625amonth. 1325amonth. Or for agencies, it's 33 bucks a month. That's ridiculously cheap.

Yeah, I'm paying 15 bucks a month for Grow Social, which I'm not going to promote now because this is so much better. Wow. This is great, folks.

This whole podcast is all about secrets, and you get them all in the 11th hour.

That's right. That's right. That's why you have to stay to the end to. To get this kind of stuff. This is really great, Dre.

You.

You've been on Fired lately with your tips of the week. I don't know how you're finding this stuff, but you.

We're building. We're building a special, special software. So you cannot fast forward any of our. Any of our podcasts.

Yeah, that's right. I'm not going to put them in the show notes anymore either. If you want to see the tip of the week, you have to listen the podcast all the way to the end, and then you have to post it on Facebook that you liked it, and you have to share it. Share. Like the podcast.

Let's play a little game from here on out. It's going to be called Where's Waldo? But we'll do it as where's the Tip? So, like, you have to put, like. We're not going to tell you guys. We're going to start doing tips a week in the middle of our podcast so that you don't even know where it's going to be. And we're not going to put the information on the bottom. So you're going to have to just figure it out. And if you find it, you let us know that you found it, you actually listened to our podcast, and then you'll enter to win a three day, two night sleepover at Mark's place.

Yeah, that'd be fun. Exactly. We should get two or three people who want to do that, for sure. All right, so my tip of the week, That's a great tip, by the way, is a book. A book. 18 minutes. Find your focus, master distraction, and get the right things done. And everybody knows I have such a hard time with attention and focusing, and it's always been a daily struggle, and I'm always trying to tweak my day and figure out, okay, how am I going to plan my day for today to get the wigs done, the wildly important goals for that day or that week or that month? So I'm really not just working in the business and feeling busy, but actually being really productive on the things that are going to help grow the business. So check it out. I think the author's name is Bregman. 18 minutes. Find your focus, master distraction and get the right things done. If you want more tips, tricks, techniques on how to make passive income, active income, more money buying and selling raw land, the best asset on earth, go to www.thelandgeek.com, download the passive income blueprint, get the ebook how to Avoid the three Faded Land Buying Mistakes and listen to Duran and I argue on a weekly basis. And get the podcast delivered each week to your email inbox. And look, give Duran some love. Check out landhub.com go to reserveland.com invest in some wholesale land. If he doesn't have any wholesale land, check out Frontier Properties, USA.com and Duran. Are we good? Anything else on your mind?

I think we're good.

Mark.

Thanks for your time, my friend.

Thank you. Hey, I really appreciate it. And I assume we're just going to go surf now?

Actually, the surf is really good. I will definitely be surfing today.

Yeah, see if you, if you buy and sell enough land, you can go surf.

Put it this way, if you buy it, if we're gonna, we're gonna offer, eventually gonna offer program where we teach land and surfing on the same weekend.

I know this is Duran's dream, by the way, is to have these programs and I'm just like, I don't know. So if you're interested in land coaching and surfing combined, send us an email. In the meantime, show us some love. Leave us a comment on itunes. Look, hook us up on Facebook and you know, like, mark the land. Or is it Mark the Land Geek or the Land Geek page? Like it? Share it, Give us some love, whatever you want to do. Anyways, thanks for listening everybody. We really do appreciate it and we'll see everybody next week.

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