Where to find the best land deals in 2026

I once dined on steak with a candle's soft glow, but the bill left my savings despairingly low. Now wisdom has taught me, so simple, so grand, Eat baloney, buy land! Oh! Eat baloney, buy land! Play the fork for the team in your hand! Skip the fillet, let the sandwiches stand! Your fortune will grow when you buy your own land!

Welcome everybody to Land Geek Nightcap. Fellas, good to see you. Hey everybody, tonight we're doing something a little different. Viewership might be a little down tonight because of the State of the Union, but tonight we're gonna deliver the official 2026 State of the Land Union address. And no politics, just land, all right? Because if you've been in this business, if you're new to the business, you've been doing this for a while, you know, let's talk a little bit about the market. Is it a seller's market? Is it a buyer's market? Is the economy helping us? Are margins shrinking? Is competition real? So tonight we thought we'd talk about that a little bit and we've created some departments that we're gonna talk about, some land departments. So we're gonna evaluate the health of the business in different areas, different departments of the land business. And as always, we're gonna have a lot of fun doing it. And I've got the best cabinet in the land business with me tonight. Of course, we have, you know, the godfather himself, el presidente himself, the architect of this entire Land Geek ecosystem, the original no-tenants, termites, toilets visionary, Mark J. Podolsky.

So good to see you guys.

What's up? Good to see you. You feel better?

I'm— no, I'm not. I can't shake this thing. I'm doing everything. I'm doing the nasal rinse, the Nasicort. Oh, I'm eating soup. I'm doing the work. Can't shake it.

You gotta do the rinse with the soup. That's when you get really extreme.

So what do you want?

You got to do the rinse with it.

Have you ever done the neti pot thing?

Yeah, no, that's what I'm doing.

Soup in the neti pot, and then—

oh, the soup in the neti pot, that I'll try. That would be funky.

Uh, I like Vicks VapoRub. Maybe you could come up with like a Vicks Vapo solution and do that in the neti pot.

Yeah, yeah, that sounds— sounds like, you know, put— put in chat your home remedy for a head cold.

I'm ready for the head cold. Hollingsworth, what do you got? What do you got for us? Also joined by our Secretary of Acquisitions this evening.

I was voting for Lanzar, but I'll take Secretary of Acquisitions.

Lanzar.

All right. How's it going tonight, John?

It's going good. Yeah, we have the sickness, it comes and goes. Between about November and March for my family. So it's coming and then it will go.

So, but today it came again.

It came again.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I would love to HIPAA violate and talk about the sickness, but I won't because of Mr. HIPAA himself over there.

Oh, you're right. Yeah. Uh-huh.

I like that.

That's a good one.

Mr. HIPAA. Scott, Mr. HIPAA Buster.

Exactly. Instead of the iCap OG dude, buddy. Mr. Hippo. Hungry Hungry Hippo.

I'll call you the Hippo Violator then. That's what we'll call you.

That is fair.

Sauna.

Have you tried the sauna, Mark?

Okay. Yes. Thank you. No, I've tried the dry. I've tried the steam. I've tried the long shower. I take the vitamin D, Kathy. 5,000 IU. I'm doing the work.

Don's a respiratory therapist, so—

Don, hug it out, brother.

Yeah, he lives with congestion problems. Awesome. All right, well, and then I guess I'll just— do you guys want to give me a title, or should I make myself?

Wait, so is Mark already El Presidente?

Yeah, he's El Presidente.

Yeah, you're the Lanzar dude, buddy. I mean, I don't know, Secretary of State, Department.

Department of what?

Department of Things.

Department of Things. All right, I'll be— I'm the Secretary of Things.

Head of the LIA, the Land Intelligence Agency.

Ooh, I like that.

Ooh.

A Land Intelligence Agency.

Yeah.

That's a good one right there. All right, I'll be the head of that tonight.

Zeno's like a little sleeper cell. We don't know where he is, but he's gonna get activated.

Yeah, he's probably in the LIA 'cause yeah, he's not with us tonight. He's dealing with the, you know, the travel issues due to the nor'easter.

The nor'easter.

Yeah, up there. So, well, very good. I'm excited for tonight's topic, but I think we should, because we sometimes skip this, let's tell everybody what we do. So John Burnett, you want to give everybody a 30-second, 45-second synopsis on who we are, what the heck we're doing here?

So we are land investors. We buy land at 25, 35 cents on the dollar. We turn it around and we sell it for $1 on the dollar or more with owner financing. We do a lot of owner financing. And so we buy a lot of properties to smell— spell— it's not smell them, we sell them for a small payment over a large period of time. And as we do that, it builds up passive income, recurring revenue. And ultimately our goal, all of us when we got into this was time freedom, time with our families, and to replace our income. And so that's, that's what we do. How was that? Besides the smelling part, that wasn't great.

It was amazing.

As far as like a State of the Union address, I think, look, no one walked out. No one's booing you.

Liar!

Liar! That's a bit of a lie!

Oh man, uh, you know, I'm standing for you, John, so, you know, yeah, I should stand. Mark, Mark's sitting, so, you know, that shows us who your fan is, uh, in the room. So it's happening.

Um, I'm, I'm clapping quietly.

Oh man. All right, guys, well, Mark Let's talk about the department of supply. All right, so let's, what are we seeing from sellers right now in the land market?

Okay.

Thoughts?

I'm so glad you asked. The current state of the supply market right now is robust. It is healthy. I have not found a client that has come to us in the union and has lambasted me and said, Mark, no deals now, no deals. No one has done that. If anything, it is— I've— they're buying lots of land, they're excited about the land, they're buying land, they're buying wholesale, they're buying retail. The state of the land supply is strong and the market is robust and it is large. And most importantly, and for me to stay in power, this is very important, the market remains inefficient. Mm-hmm. Even with all the technology, even with all the AI, it still comes down to what a buyer and a seller agree.

Oh, I love that.

Please stay seated. No, please.

Oh man, this topic's right up your alley, Mark. Uh, no, you're, you're exactly right. Uh, sellers are, uh, sellers are happy to sell now. Uh, you know, And just like it's been the entire 10 years I'm doing this, as long as we're consistent with our mailers, we're buying land. And, you know, you're exactly right, Mark, about the inefficient market. And it really is amazing how we'll send these mailers out to people and we'll get somebody really upset with our offer. And then the next day we get somebody who's tickled pink that we've, that we've shown up. to be able to take this land off their hands. What about you, John?

Sellers, sellers, sellers selling, sellers selling, sellers selling. So, and we got, I mean, recently we had a great block of properties that we bought. And by block, I mean, just like, you know, in one, well, so one month we bought 7 properties for $26,000. And then we sold all of those over the last month and a half. And I think it's, it's over $170,000 in sales.

Wow.

Then so 10%, just like we always talk about, like a typical business.

Yeah, just like a typical business. And what's great too with that is that we got in down between cash sales and down payments were around $20,000.

You know, so you almost have your money out and you've got $172,000 in enterprise. Mm-hmm. What's that yield? That's insane.

Big, big yield.

Big yield. We like the yield. Can someone in the comments give us the yield on that deal? Yeah, that's robust.

It's robust.

That's robust.

All right, we've got some comments coming in. Christine, Christine Oliver, I've sent over 1,000 offers, now we wait. So I think maybe we should chat about that for a minute because people were saying that it's a seller's market, we're buying, buying, buying, but some people are maybe struggling with their first batch of mailers. John, words of wisdom for those folks?

My words of wisdom are, uh, keep on keeping on, right? The goal is 3 to 5% response rate. Why aren't you buying a property every 100 to 200 mailers? And so you are shooting to— that is your end goal. For your mailers, right? So when you send out your mailers, if you don't get that, that's an indicator that you need to adjust things, right? The biggest thing that you can adjust is your price point, right? What are you offering for your property? If you offer too much, your response rate is going to be too high, right? If you offer too little, your response rate is going to be too low. And so as you adjust that, it'll get you back to exactly where you, where you need to be. So I've had areas where I remember Klamath County, Oregon, when I first mailed there, I found a property that Luke Harris had bought. I mean, he bought it for a very low amount of money. And I was like, well, if he can do it, I can do it. And so I sent out a bunch of mailers at that price point and no dice. And so I slowly incrementally brought it up to the same regular price that I should have offered from the outset. And then I started doing a bunch of deals, but it took me a lot of mailers to get to that point because I started too low. And then I've done dozens of deals there since, you know, so sometimes you just have to be patient and just keep on going, working things and getting to that, that, that right offer.

offer price. Yeah, and there's a waiting game too, right? So Chris just said she sent them out the last, uh, 10 days or so, uh, so those mailers won't hit a peak. I think the peak used to be long— it used to take longer for the mailers to hit. I think now we see around, you know, week 3 is maybe the peak. Do you agree with that?

I think that makes sense.

Yeah, you can— can I get a concur?

You can have a concur, but you asked for it.

It does not— Yeah, that's like a half a sip.

Can I please have a concur? I want concur fishing. That was a term last week, Mark, that we came up with. Zainal was concur fishing, so.

I love that.

All right, awesome. Well, let's move on to the next department inland. Let's see if I can find it though. Where did we go? Oh, I know what it is. It is the department of— sorry, where did it go? The department of— I lost it.

Well, I mean, how about the department of sales?

Yeah, we definitely need to do the department of sales while I look for I look for my departments. So yeah, I was talking about the Department of Sales. Uh, are the buyers buying, Mark J. Podolsky?

The buyers be buying. That being said, I would say that the buyers be buying not as aggressively as the sellers be selling currently. Would you guys concur? Am I concurfishing?

I would concur for the month of— like months of December, January, but February, we've had a good February. So I feel things picking back up again.

Yeah, but I mean, I think, you know, if we're gonna do the State of the Union, I think on the macroeconomic—

Oh, sure.

The buyers be buying because as we see, and I'm always talking about this, like I think I'm an economist, I'm not. But as we see the, the US government's debt continue to rise, we have to— you have inflation eating the value of the dollar. Cash continues to be trash. You see a flight to safe assets. So gold is going through the roof. Silver was going through the roof. Commodities are going through the roof. What's a commodity? What's a scarce resource? Land. And so the trend will be we will continue to see people buying, um, raw land. I mean, the demand, the lust for land in this country remains strong. But to your point, the last 2 months, compared to sellers be selling, buyers weren't be buying. But now I, I agree, it is— it has picked up.

So, and I, I think it depends on price point too. Um, you know, I think that, um, I think there are price points that move faster than others, right? And, uh, John, can you speak to that at all? Is that a trend that you see, that you've seen here in the last, last year? That's what I've seen.

I don't know, I've kind of done a little bit of everything, and from— I guess for me, a lot of mine have been in the Uh, 200 to 300 per month range has kind of been typical for me, um, with some in the, you know, like 160 to 200. But I would say, I would say the bulk are in the 200 to 300 range.

Mm-hmm.

Although now that I look at these, I might be wrong. It might be more like 40, 160 to 200, and then 60, 200 to 300.

Yeah. And why do you— why do we think that is, Mark? Are buyers just more cautious? What do you think?

I don't know. I mean, I think that when you make the property irresistible at a low price point, like a car payment, they do sell faster. I don't know about the psychology of the buyer. I don't think it's really changed very much. I think they want the land if they can afford the land.

Mm-hmm.

It has been my experience. Then again, you know, I'm not on the phone with buyers these days either. So not being in the trenches, I'm, you know, I'm looking at a spreadsheet and coming to some conclusions. So it'd probably be a good idea for me to talk to the salespeople once in a while. Oh yeah, they don't have time for me. They're closing deals. They talk to me, they're losing money.

Uh, Holly Hollingsworth is feeling an uptick, so the buyers are doing their taxes early and getting their refunds rolling in. She's had a few today just waiting for their refunds. I've heard that. Uh, we've heard that last couple weeks as well, waiting for the refund to come. There usually is a little uptick in the —yeah, in April, May— March, April, May—

because of that. So do you guys ever do an early payoff discount? I sometimes— I've done that before, like around tax time, where I'll give somebody, like, I'll knock off, say, 10% off the balance if they pay off, like, within X amount of time. But, you know, you can get a good chunk of cash.

I know that people—

John Thrasher is doing the 6-month same as cash.

Yeah. Uh, I know people have run campaigns like that. I haven't run a campaign like that, but now I think that's a good idea, John. I think that's probably the— a great tip of the week right there.

It's, uh, yeah, I, I mean, I've done it, I've done it probably a few times, and like, it's always like, I don't know, you get like $20 grand or something.

Yeah, yeah. Um, I'm taking the misses on vacation here this month, so maybe I'll do that.

Oh, where are we going? We're going to Hawaii, Mark.

Oh yeah, we're going to the Big Island. So, uh, my wife's aunt lives on the Big Island, so we're gonna spend a little time with family and we're gonna just spend some nice quality time together.

That's beautiful.

It is beautiful. So, uh, I'm gonna use John's strategy to just help me pay for my help me pay my vacation, pay my vacation off. Why not? There you go. There you go. Awesome. Very good. Okay, well, uh, what, what else is everybody feeling about the buyers out there? Anybody else have any feedback? John Thrasher, you've had a few buyers come your way, I understand. Uh, did I see in the chat that you had a sale right here? Don closed a fairly nice one, bought at $3,100, sold on terms for $12,600 over 48 months.

Ah, cheers.

Standing O for you, Don.

There's a win of the week right there.

There you go. That is a win of the week for sure. Don Thrasher, what's the yield on that one? It's got to be pretty good.

That's a good one.

Yeah, what's the yield on it? Uh, congrats to you. Ooh, look at this! Chase Kittleson tuning in from 32,000 feet away, feet on the way to the Big Island right now.

Wow!

Hey, hey, Chase, talk to me when you're back and let me know, uh, what, uh, what, what things you did on the Big Island. I want to know. That's pretty cool. Oh, here's the yield for Don Thrasher. Any guesses?

89%.

Mark's guess is 89%. John, did you see it in the chat?

My guess is 123%.

That's an educated guess, John. 123% yield. I mean—

How are you seeing this?

Where do I go? It's, uh, in the upper right.

Now I see.

Yep, awesome. Comment for Bryce McGee, Red Dirt Witch. Two weeks, two weeks ago, dove into county market research this past week. This is his second Nightcap. Loving the community so far. Let's talk about the department of the community, shall we?

Let's talk about Bryce. Welcome, Bryce.

Welcome to the community. I mean, to me, that is the most— one of the most impactful things about this whole journey is our community. Because we say it all the time, you're going to make real friends, you're going to make deal friends. And you're just going to get smarter, hanging out with people who are smarter than you. And, you know, I've ridden a lot of coattails in the last 10 years. And happy to do it. But it's a lot of fun. It's a really amazing community full of people who just, you know, most of us just want our time back. We want our time back because that is our most valuable asset to spend with family and children and loved ones and— Yeah. You're the best community in the world, Bryce. Welcome. John, what do you have to say about the community?

I have to say that I concur, Scott.

That was not a concur fish. I was not concur fishing.

No, but I genuinely do concur.

Good.

For me, the community has been a huge blessing to me. Like, I've got friends that are, like you said, the real friends, the deal friends, the real deal friends.

Yeah, I forgot that.

Yes. And I've got people that I touch base with every week, and I have done for like 7 years. You know, like, it's crazy, you know? And I've done very well. Like, I've grown a lot personally just alongside these people. Right. And I've done really well just in opportunities that were mutually beneficial or just learning things like, like you were saying, Scott, like riding people's coattails. Like there are a lot of people, I love how we all follow the same model, right? And the model, the model works. And so we're all working it, but at the same time, each of us has different skill sets, different little superpowers. And so just being alongside people and learning and growing alongside of them, I've grown a lot. As well.

Mark, you love superpowers. You talk about superpowers all the time.

Yeah, I mean, I agree. I mean, I don't want to say I concur. I agree with John. I mean, it is, and it is cliché, but you really are the average of the 5 people you hang out with the most. And so if those people are in a growth mindset, which if you're in this kind of community, you're just naturally, you join because you're going on this adventure and this hero's journey. Because when you first start, it is hard. You are battling a lot of things, you're moving a lot of things, and it's just genuinely a challenge. And then at some point you become competent. And you become the hero of the journey, but it's lonely. And then you start helping other people as they go through it and, and giving back, and that is more rewarding than you closing your own deal. And so, you know, when we're all excited about Don Thrasher's 123% yield, that's a rare thing for a community because we're not looking at it like Oh, I wish I had that deal. We're like, go Don! And then Don feels that, and, and he's going to want to hang out more. He's going to share what he's doing so that, you know, you succeed, so you can do that as well. And it just keeps building and building and building. And, and you have the real friends, you have the deal friends, and the community just grows and grows and grows with this tremendous abundance mentality where we can all succeed We can all get better. And where I'm weak, you're strong. Where I'm strong, you're weak. And it's, it's just special. It's just really special. And I mean, and you get to hang out with these guys, right? Like, that's really great to rub elbows with these celebrities.

We've got great elbows.

Great elbows. You know, how cool is it to go to the Dervish Summit and like meet you guys in person? And ask a land question, right? Because not everybody's going to the chat and asking questions, but like when you're in person, it's like, hey, by the way, I'm doing this, am I on the right track? Like, yeah, you are, or no, I do this.

Well, I think we should throw that, uh, on, on the, on a little banner here at the bottom of the screen because we know when the next Dirt Rich Summit is, uh, and it's October 1st through the 3rd. I believe. So if, if, uh, you folks watching want to come and hang out for 3 days with 250 other land investors at different stages in their journey, it's a— it's just a blast. We had such a blast last time, uh, so really looking forward to that.

Yeah, absolutely.

Very good. Hollingsworth, we're gonna get you on here. She wants to be a nightcap substitute. We're gonna get you on here, Hollingsworth. That's awesome.

You named a deal after him.

Yeah. I gotta remember, what's the deal again though?

I forgot what it was. It was Hollingsworth.

If you could remind us what the deal is.

Yeah, if your yield's over 100%, we'll call it a thrasher. Oh, it's a thrasher.

Oh, I like that. I like that. I do like the thrasher.

For sure. Yeah, we gotta get the regulars on. That'd be so fun. That would be fun.

It would be fun. Don's already got his DRS ticket. Uh, all right, warm up the hug, Don. Where is the Dirt Rich Summit? Sorry, I didn't mention. Uh, it is in Austin, Texas, October 1st through the 3rd, and I'm not sure if you can find information on the website yet, but, uh, you'll be seeing information about it.

Yeah, we're not shy about emailing you. Right, exactly.

So you'll be seeing info about it. But Mark—

Oh, he's gone! He's gone! Scott has gone. Well, thanks everyone for showing up. This was great. This is great. We had a great time. Had a great nightcap. Put in the chat your big takeaway. Oh, he's back.

Thank God.

By the way, John and I have no powers over this livestream at all. So if Scott goes—

You guys are on here all night.

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know what happened. I gave a little sideswipe there and I went away. I just swiped myself off the screen. So yeah, so sorry about that.

That was great.

All right, well, we have another department to talk about. It's the Department of Inventory and Margins. All right. So first, let's talk margins. Mark, you talk about 3x to 10x cash deals, right? Are these deals still real? Are we still seeing these numbers in the land business?

Yeah.

You saw them 25 years ago. Are we seeing them today?

I know. Yes, we, we are. Yes, yes. And so yeah, with inflation, we're paying more for the properties. We're also selling at the higher price as well. So it's— the equilibrium remains. We're still seeing, you know, a thrasher at least once a week for these yields. I would say our average yield though is probably around 72% right now. Which is healthy. So we're doubling our money every year.

Yeah, that's, uh, pretty, pretty good, right?

Yeah, it's pretty good. Yeah.

What about you, John? Margins, uh, margins changed for you since you started this 8, 9 years ago?

Uh, I would say that my margins lately are great and getting better too. And like, um, I would say that, um, like buying a property for $1,000 and selling it for $100 a month, like that 10 to 1, uh, is like— there was a chunk of time where that was like, okay, now it's 100, or it's, uh, buy for, buy for $1,000 and maybe it's like $89 a month or something like that. So I saw that getting squeezed for a little bit. But lately I've seen that go up, right? So that's kind of my experience.

Yeah. And I would say the same. Margins are the same, prices are inflated, but the margins are the same. And I get asked all the time, can you still really— because Mark, you wrote Dirt Rich in what? You wrote it in what, 2017, published 2018?

I wrote it in 2017. It got published in 2018.

Right. Yeah. And you talked about buying plots of land for $500, right? And I get the question all the time, can you still buy land for $500? I— yes, I still buy multiple land parcels a year at $500. I just bought 3 1-acre parcels in New Mexico for $1,500 from one buyer— or sorry, one seller, right? I'd say the $500 plots maybe aren't as frequent as they used to be, but $1,000 I mean, there's just a gazillion, I wouldn't say a gazillion, but just a gigaton of $1,000 properties out there.

Not a gazillion, but there is a gigaton.

A gigaton.

Sorry, sorry. So I'm curious for everybody watching who's purchased a property, what's the cheapest property you've ever bought?

I mean, like for me, it's probably like the dollar Skittle.

Yeah, I've done a dollar deal, right?

Dollar Skittle.

I've done a buy one, get one free, right? Type thing. I'll give you this one too if you just take it off my hands. Okay. Right?

Yeah.

Look at this though, Hollingsworth. She bought a property for $325,000. Don Thrasher, $500.

I don't know why they're coming to me and be like, hey, you want to split the deal? You put in $150, I'll put in $150, we'll split the profit.

Like, really? Right. Billy Swinton, 2 for $1,750. So, so, you know, we got some proof here, folks, that we're still buying land for $500 and less. Chase Kittleson, $250. Chase, there's a lot of vacant land on the Bay Island out there. So yeah, we should collaborate.

Chase can't get like a martini in the Big Island for less than $2.50. Think about that. That's crazy.

Mark, why would you go to Hawaii and order a martini?

Exactly. My bad, my bad. You wouldn't. My bad, you wouldn't.

That's funny. But yeah, Chase. Let's do a little county research when we're out there and come back and compare notes on the Big Island landmark out there. Very good. Awesome. Well, so the margins are great. So we've determined, you know, the department of, the department of supply is robust, the department of demand is relatively robust. Right? The Department of Margins, Inventory Margins is definitely robust. What other departments do we have? Well, we have— oh, we should talk about this. The Department of Marketing and Competition.

Ooh.

All right. So we hear this all the time. Mark, you've been teaching this forever. The land market's got to be saturated. Is saturation actually a problem? No. You always get the same look on his face every time. And then he does that. I love it.

If you're in the Facebook algorithm though, it looks like everybody's in the land business. And then you start looking at the business, you're like, oh my God, I have all these deals, more deals than I can handle. So no, it seems like it. I always kind of feel like, I almost feel like, yeah, it is. Because like, there's a part of me that's like, if you're that scared to do it, don't do it. Like, you know what I mean? But honestly, though, fear not the land market. There are billions of acres available. You, me, a million people can be in this niche. We're all gonna run out of money before we run out of deal flow. And so I've been doing this a long time. We're all in the business. I'll tell you what, if it gets saturated, we're not teaching it anymore. Right. Like, why would we do it? Like, you know, we're not, we're not dumb. You know, we just teach it because There's so much available. Oh my God. But I know, I mean, I laugh, but I mean, but I get it. I get it because if you're coming from traditional real estate and you're in a, like, you know, let's say like Austin, you're a wholesaler, that could be a real thing. That could, I mean, but we, I mean, in 26 years I've been doing this, I've never experienced any saturation. And we've been doing this a long time. Long time. It's just a massive market and you couldn't think of a more boring niche. You just couldn't. Yeah. And there's just so many micro niches out there too. It's not like everyone's buying the way we're buying. So excuse me as I blow my nose.

It's always a great nightcap. It's always a nightcap win when Mark has a laughing fit. I mean, that was something else. I enjoyed that.

We need to create like a nightcap bingo card at some point.

Ooh, yeah, that'd be fun. That would be great.

All concurs. That's all it is.

Oh man. Well, John, within the Department of Marketing competition, I think there's something else we should talk about because we get the question all the time also. Does direct mail still work? Aren't you guys cold texting and cold calling? Uh, so what are your thoughts on that as far as how we're acquiring land parcels?

Direct mail does work. And, um, I've actually played around with other stuff and I found that it worked for a while. And direct mail has been the most consistent and reliable marketing source for me. Over the entire time that I've been, that I've been doing this. But it's, yeah, it's great. You get a consistent response rate. There's also like, with, uh, with texting, it's kind of flash in the pan, you know. Somebody is hot and they are hot for 5 to 10 minutes. You need to respond to them right now. And with mail, there's something where like somebody responds and they don't, they don't expect you to drop everything and get back to them right away and they've looked at your offer, right? And so there's something like, as especially as we're ultimately building this to create time freedom, freedom, having a marketing source that, that is consistent and doesn't have the same ridiculous sense of urgency that you have with other outbound marketing sources, I think is really strong. So I still like marketing. It's— Excuse me, mailing. It's still my favorite. Way to buy properties.

You handwriting those letters, John?

Every day. So when Valerie and I started, we, um, I remember, uh, we went through, uh, flight school and sitting on the bed and going through the modules, and then I was like, so many more people are going to open our letters if we handwrite these addresses. I'm handwriting the addresses. I don't care what Scott Dodd says. And we did it one night. I wrote 20 of them and I was like, this was the worst idea ever. And then we never did that again. So.

And what about, what about, what about the mailers? Are you getting fancy, John, with like color and logo and multi-page offer letters or just keeping it simple?

I don't go multi-page. I've played around with stuff, but simple works. Yeah. Like, it's just what people are interested in is the offer letter. It's the offer amount. And it's the time, right? And when those two things line up, then you get the lead.

So—

I concur. Oh, I got one. I definitely concur on that.

Watchers.

Hmm, awesome. Okay, and then, uh, what about, um—

wait, wait, dude, but I got an answer for you. Are you— you have your, your Open Claw automate calling sellers now?

Well, not yet. I'm getting it all set up there. It's, you know, there, there's a lot of time to be spent be spent, uh, setting up the, the OpenClaw system. But yeah, I mean, that's a vision, right? So, um, I, I can see that, um, you know, I, I will have probably an AI agent helping with acquisitions and sales, uh, pretty soon. Pretty soon, actually, which is pretty exciting. John, are you there yet? Are you close? Are you there yet?

I'm not there yet. I, I mean, I'm only there insofar as we'll use AI to assist us with like, you know, just, it's more like a research assistant, I think, for us at this point. So we'll use it like, I think I mentioned this before, but we had like somebody and we were trying to figure out, we're in negotiations, like what's the number that we can realistically throw out that they'll take? And so we just threw all the transcripts in AI. Yeah. From all of our conversations, and it took all of her cues and said, this is the number, she'll be happy with this. And we did it. And I would have offered $7,000 more, right? We sold it for $77,000, you know. So—

Wow, that's awesome. That's a good use of it.

Yeah. So, but I haven't, I haven't really used it as like an, an agent.

Well, Well, I think we— that kind of segues into the next department. Okay? Which we have another department to talk about here in the LAN State of the Union, and that is the Department of Innovation and Automation. Right? And how do we see the current state of the LAN Union when it comes to systems and AI and using VAs and that type of thing. I feel like we're kind of at the forefront of this. So we'll hit up El Presidente first because I think he has a great perspective on this. But Mark, what do you see coming in the land business?

Okay. It is going to be—

Laughing fit number 2.

The best time ever to be an entrepreneur. Is now. And the innovation, the technology, it is so exciting because all the drudgery that you or your team are going through, it's going to be— it's going to be AI. Now, what the— like, it's— It is, it is, it is going to be an interesting time. I don't want to make any predictions. I don't want to fearmonger. But I would say that if you're on the fence about getting your next job or becoming an entrepreneur, I— because of innovation, the technology, I'd probably go on the side of entrepreneur. I wouldn't have said that maybe 3 years ago. If you're on the fence, and I was like, tell me a little bit about you. I don't need to know anything about you. I need that, like, we can see what's, what's what's trending right now with technology. And you want to be using the tool, you don't want the tool to displace you. And so right now, if you're playing around with it, you're doing the FAFO method, you're fooling around, you're finding out what it can do, you're way ahead of 99% of people right now. And so I am using— Like, I've got— I'm vibe coding, I'm playing with agents, I have agent squads, I have my Mac Mini, I have OpenClaw. Like, I'm playing around with stuff all day long and seeing what it can do, testing it, Markdown files, skills, all the things that I think are going to really benefit me in the future. So is it the best use of my time? Yes. Right now, yes. Yeah. So I think that the state of innovation technology is— it is the most exciting time in history. And the fact that we get to live through this is just amazing. And do I think superintelligence could absolutely wipe us off the planet? Yes, I do. But hopefully, that doesn't happen. And, you know, the, the powers that be put some guardrails on it. We have as a tool that we can control and that it doesn't get out of control.

Very well said. Thank you for that. Yeah, thank you for that perspective. It's a very exciting time. I think some people are nervous, some people are excited. I think, you know, Mark, you and I were talking today about how you know, it's coming either way. Just like 3 years is coming either way. Like, it's just, it's coming. So let's, let's embrace it and utilize it to our advantage while we can here. And, and help it— I'm sorry, and help grow our businesses with it. So—

Yeah, and it's time to learn new things, right? Like, yeah, I wouldn't be afraid of it. I would just— it's It's a new toy, start playing around. Not gonna break anything, it's fun.

Yeah, yeah, yep, for sure. John, what are your thoughts on the AI before we get into our executive orders?

Yeah, I would say I think Mark really summed it up super well. And I think like my general thoughts with AI is we like with our model, we've always been talking about delegation and automation, right? And that's how we achieve time freedom because there's so much repeatability in what we do. We can delegate, we can automate. The way we've, you know, historically the way we had to look at that is if you had completely consistent variables, you can automate, right? If you have inconsistent variables, you have to delegate, right?

Mm-hmm.

So the same exact thing over and over and over again. The email always comes in, it's always this exact format every single time. You can automate, right? But if there's a level of critical thought required, then you, you must delegate. You can't automate that portion. And now with the advent of AI, there's now this gray area where you can actually automate some critical thought, which is—

Mm-hmm.

Right? And so it really, I, I think puts us in a spot where we can run our businesses a lot more efficiently, right? And just in terms of like, we can delegate less and automate more, right? And then also I think it just is gonna enable us to do so much more than we could do in the past. So.

I love it. I love it. Embrace the AI, folks. Embrace the AI.

Yeah.

All right.

Remember when like putting up a landing page was like, a hard thing to do.

Oh my God. Yeah.

Like, you could literally do a landing page like every 10 minutes.

Yeah.

You could do a landing page for every piece of land.

Yeah. Oh yeah.

Yeah. Not hard.

It's not hard.

It's crazy we can do that.

It is crazy what we can do. Yeah.

Ooh, and sorry. I'm— never mind. I'm going to go way off topic. I have a— or sorry, I would go way off topic. I was gonna talk about my April Fools promo that I'm planning on doing, but—

Do you wanna get a little closer to April Fools or not?

I mean, I'm very excited. I'm gonna sell it. I was talking to my operations guy today and I was like, we're gonna do 5 Acres on the Moon. And so—

You're gonna get a lot of opens on that, on that email.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I'm stealing it, John, because you're fine with that, right?

Nobody listening to this.

I'm not stealing it. I'm doing 5 Acres on Mars.

Oh, okay.

There you go.

Oh my gosh. Speaking of the moon and Mars, have you guys seen For All Mankind on Apple?

No, I want to though.

Oh, the first two— the first two seasons, Mark, are phenomenal. After that, there's some plot things that I, uh, I could take or leave, but the first two seasons of For All Mankind are amazing. And the fifth season is coming out here next month.

Yeah, so Christine Oliver put a really nice, uh, comment in the chat.

This is great right here. The, the tech She thought the tech part would be too hard, and because of that, she delayed starting FlySoo, but so far she's doing really well and learning every day. That's awesome, Christine. I'm excited, excited for you. Very good. All right.

And the cool thing now is like, the learning curve is so short in a weird way because you just keep asking it questions. Like, what does this mean? Well, now what does that mean? What does this mean? And then I, my big line is like, explain this to me like I'm a 10-year-old.

Yeah.

I'm like, okay, still too complex. Explain to me like I'm a 5-year-old. And it's like, okay, imagine Legos. And like, it's like so great.

Yeah. Yeah. No, it's pretty awesome right now. Pretty fun. All right, well, so before we adjourn the State of the Land unit, I thought it'd be fun if each of us could give an executive order for all of our viewers out there. So, you know, you be whatever you want. So, but what executive order would you give to the people who are watching, who have watched the entire episode here at the end of the call? John, I'll put you on the spot.

Ah. Say? Everybody give me $20. I would say, do the next thing. You know, think about like, there's that, that book by Gary Keller, The One Thing, right? One thing that's going to make the biggest difference in you moving the needle in your land business. Go do that and do it now. Or do it tomorrow. You can—

You're very, you're very intimidating executive. Your eyes, I think I just saw the most white in your eyes I've ever seen. You're always smiling. But that was angry down there for a minute. Okay, Mark, what's your executive order for all of our viewers for the rest of 2026?

My executive order— Wait, I hear some background noise. Who is that?

Was that me? Oh, that might actually—

hold on, hold on. Who's fighting in the background? The Bossman household. My executive order is let's start using better audio filters on StreamYard. After that, no. Okay, what would be my executive order? I think my executive order is gonna go down to the soft skills of have grit, have resilience, have determination, have a strong why. This is a business, this is a market, it's ever-changing. Be flexible. Be like water. I, I, that's my executive order. And if you can do those things, your probability of massive success goes higher and higher because this is a fine wine business. The longer you're in it, the better it is. And so if you're Bryce and you just started, it's hard. Cool. Mm-hmm. It's hard. Accept it. Have some grit. Everything's hard. So if you know that going in, it's going to be challenging. You're on this, this adventure. You're on that hero's journey. Well, it's gonna be boring if it's easy. So embrace the suck, embrace the challenge, have the grit, have the resilience, be flexible, and have some fun. Have some fun with it. You're not having fun. Life's too short. Have some fun with it. Those are my executive orders.

I love it. I love it. Thank you, guys. All right, well, I'll give a couple as well. So I think that my executive order would be to invest in your future self and also protect your future self, right? So to have some foresight that the world is changing, is changing very fast. AI is gonna touch multiple industries. And what does that look like in your career, in your field? And does that mean that, you know, could your job be cannibalized completely, or could it change a lot to where maybe it's just not as satisfying? Do you want, you know, what can you do now to protect yourself 3, 5 years from now? And I agree with you, Mark, from earlier. I think there's gonna be kind of this entrepreneurial wave here in this country. And I would just encourage everybody to think about that. And whether it's land or something else, it could be something else, right? Think about that and what you could do outside of your comfort zone. And that, and that's where, that's where growth occurs. It's cliché, but it's very true. We've all experienced it. So that's what I would— that's my executive order, is think about that stuff.

I love it. I love Nightcap because I get to learn. You guys just drop wisdom bombs. What a profound— I'm being selfish now. I love it. Let's keep going. What else? Give me another executive order.

Another executive order? Well, maybe we should have the people. The people. Yeah.

The people chime in. Yeah, give us an executive order.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Anyone can give an executive order.

Yeah, that's right. In Languag Nation, anyone can give an executive order. I don't know what form of government it is, but it's not hierarchical.

Oh, it's for the people, by the people, you know?

Word to Mark.

Throw it in the chat. Okay, Bryce McGee, embrace the fun and have fun doing it. Oh, he's echoing you, Mark, but that's a great thing to follow. Hollingsworth, you gotta have an executive order. What do you just, what's your executive order for Doug? That's what I wanna know. What will you be telling Doug to do tomorrow? That's what I'm curious about. I like this though, Mark. When she's using AI, she'll say, "Explain it to me like I'm a low-tech granny." I know, that's, that's fantastic. That is fantastic. That is fantastic. Uh, anyone, anyone have thoughts?

I'm buying lowtechgranny.com right now as a domain.

Wait a minute, wait a minute, hold on. Clara, buy lowtech, uh, granny.com right now. Beat you to it. No, I'm just kidding.

Next week though. Next week you'll be able to do it.

Oh man.

Steal all your money. It's gonna be great.

This is Kathy's executive order to Doug. Let me retire.

Let me retire.

Tell Doug we're on your side, Kathy. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, this was fun, guys.

If you just joined us, go to landgeek.com/training to learn more.

Throw it up here. landgeek.com/training. That forward slash, backslash? Is it backslash? Forward slash. Forward slash.

Forward slash. Let's go in.

In any event, if you're interested in learning about the land business, land business, check out that page, book a call, order Dirt Rich, and read Dirt Rich on— or listen to Dirt Rich on Audible. And we'd be happy to chat with you about the land business and how it is still, I think, which we didn't even mention tonight, I think it is still the best passive income model out there for for sure.

I'd be curious what's better.

I, I don't think there is anything, is there?

There is no— not— no, I mean, it's the State of the Union. If you tell me something's better, we'll do it. I haven't seen it. Looked at a lot of models. No renters, no rehabs, no renovations, no rodents. One-time sale, recurring income. We got an asset that lasts forever. Pandemics, floods, fires. Hurricanes, the land remains. I don't know. In a massive market, inefficient, low competition, boring.

Love it. All right, guys. Well, this was fun. We've looked at the different departments within the land business. And what is the state of the land union? It's strong. Land is strong. Seller, sellers motivated, buyers are buying, the margins are there. The technology is helping us grow. And really, I mean, nothing has really changed at its core in the last 25 years with this. So it's a great business. So I think for everybody watching, I would encourage you to start participating in in the land union. It's a, it's a, it's a great ride. So for you guys, cheers! Marhaba! But cheers to you. Cheers! We'll see you next week with another fun-filled topic, I'm sure.

Thanks, fellas. Good night, everybody. Talk to you later.