Why Land Investing Is Such a Unique Asset Buying Business

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, thelandgeek.com and this week's roundtable. Because it's a few days before Thanksgiving. It's just Tate and I. I love when you call me Big Papa Tate Litchfield. Tate. How are things going?

Things are good. You know, I was. I was telling somebody the other day that I think Thanksgiving might be my favorite holiday.

I think Thanksgiving is everyone's favorite holiday. Yeah, I don't think this is a novel idea.

No, I mean, and it makes sense. It's like, hey, you want to come over to my house, watch some football and eat some really good food and just hang out all day? Like, that's the holiday.

That's the holiday. Yeah. No gifts, right? Yeah, just. Just, you know, and being great, you know, being grateful.

I mean, it's the best. And, you know, if you don't live on the west coast, you probably need a Thanksgiving out here because we're looking at 70 degrees and sun, you know, it's just.

Yeah.

I'm sorry, all east coasters, you're missing out. Thanksgiving is. It's truly a short sleeve shirt holiday out here. But most of us will fake it and we'll wear a button up just to look fancy and make it seem colder than it actually is. But no better time to live in the desert, that's for sure.

No, for sure. Well, somehow we have to loop in Land Investing into this. Into this podcast. So how do we loop in Thanksgiving gratitude with land investing?

Well, I think, you know, the obvious one is to talk about why we're grateful to have found this niche and what this niche allows each of us and our families and how we can never go back after doing this. Right. Like, we always joke that we're unemployable, and it's not really a joke. It's a. It's a statement of pride, isn't it?

No, it is definitely a statement of pride, for sure. And so, you know, it's. It's funny because we don't really talk enough, I think, about how unique this niche is and how grateful we should all be that here's an asset that we're buying 25, 30 cents on the dollar. And the only way we're able to buy this asset, 25, $0.30 on the dollar, is because the people who are selling it, when they bought it, they had hopes and dreams and aspirations, but they never came true. Or maybe their family bought it and then they inherited it and they don't want It. So it would be like if I made you an offer for everything in your garage that was actually. You had to keep paying for every sing, like in property taxes for everything in your garage. I made you an offer. 25, 30 cents on the dollar for it. You'd be grateful for the offer.

Yeah.

And so offer what I want. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay, so now you've got this asset that you don't have to maintain. It can't be destroyed. So hurricanes Covid. Nothing disrupts the raw land, and it can't be stolen. You don't have to protect it. And so you've got this asset that essentially is the only thing in life that lasts forever. And now you own it and you bought it. 25, 30 cents, a dollar, and then you flip it and you sell it. Now, it's not like the way you have to sell it. It's not like you've got to go and show the property. Right. You're not having to hire a sales team to put up a place. You don't have to bus people in to show the property. No. You can actually just have a photographer go out there, and you put it on the Internet and someone goes and they put money down on this property. You don't even have to meet the person face to face. It's incredible. They buy the property, and then they start making payments to you. You get your money out hopefully within six to ten months sometimes on the down payment. And then you've got this recurring stream of income every single month with no real estate headaches, no renters, any rehabs, renovations, or roads, and you just keep repeating it. So we're just tapping on our keyboard. It's all done digitally. We can do it from anywhere in the world. And at some point, this quote unquote, mailbox money, what do we need to go to? The mailbox gets to a point where we can just live our best lives and have total freedom to live where we want to work when we want and work with who we want. Hey, isn't this an incredible thing to be grateful for?

Yeah. I mean, the other thing that you kind of skipped over was the fact that there's not very many of us either. Right.

Like, there's neither of us.

I'm not losing deals to you. Right. Right. My knowledge, I'm not losing deals to our coaching clients either. Right, Right. For that is there's just so much land. And the other thing that I. I'm really grateful for is the fact that I've learned a skill that very, very few People actually have like this is, this is specialized knowledge. There's not just anybody who can step in and do what we do. And what we do to your point is we take a non performing asset, we pick it up for cheap, we solve one problems, one person's problem and then we resell it. We make our money and we provide an excellent opportunity for someone else. And it sounds simple, but there's very few people who know how to do it and do it well. And I'm grateful for that. I mean, I don't look at this and go, oh man, what's taking to do in 10 years because land won't be an option. No, I don't feel that way at all. Right. I look at this and I'm like, hopefully my kids like land investing because that's what they're going to end up doing. Right? There's. Yeah, that's it, that's, that's what we're good at over here. And I truly believe that, you know, the systems we've built and set up are going to outlive me. Right. That's, that's the point to this business is there's no finish line. Right. It's not like, oh, I'm done with this now. This thing goes forever when done correctly. That's unique too.

Yeah. And what's interesting is that the wind is at our sails with technology. So if I'm a lawyer or if I'm going to law school right now I might be pretty nervous about AI if I have some type of job that AI can do better than me. And the way the speed and the rate of technological advancements and billions of dollars are being put into the sector, I might be a little nervous. But if you're an entrepreneur, you're leveraging this technology so you're not going to be displaced. It's actually going to make you more efficient and increase your profit margins and provide even more freedom for you. I mean, when I started to get a list was difficult. It was one of the most difficult things to do. Now no one talks about getting a list.

Yeah. It's just, it's a non starter. Right. Technology is coming in and it's made. Here's another easy one. Right. Remember paying taxes on these properties?

Paying taxes was the biggest headache.

Right. Because you couldn't even pay them online and Right. As technology. And there's certain areas in the country where we haven't seen that trickle down effect come with technology. But the one thing that we can guarantee is that it will happen. I don't know when, but it will happen. And it's probably going to happen sooner rather than later because all of these counties and states know that, hey, people aren't going to the bank to get a cashier's check to mail to us. If we change one little thing, come up with this system that will allow us to process payments electronically. What will that do to our tax collection rate? Will it increase things or decrease things? It's only going to make it easier. So, you know, to your point, technology is the worst it'll ever be. Right here, right now. This is. This is the worst AI will ever be.

Yeah, it's. It's so exciting. It's so terrifying. It's amazing.

Yeah.

But you need to start embracing it, especially as an entrepreneur. If you're not an entrepreneur yet, you might start thinking about, how do I become an entrepreneur?

I mean, and I look at this and, yeah, part of me does get a little nervous when I see technology and those kind of things. But I also know, hey, it's here. But what I'm grateful for most of all, Mark, would be this idea of passive income. This idea of every single day we are working to grow our note portfolio. And that portfolio allows me to say, hey, tomorrow's Wednesday. I don't think I'm going to work the rest of the week. I don't need to tell anyone. I'm just not like, I need permission to not work on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I don't need permission to do that. Those aren't vacation days either. I'm not calling in sick. You know what those are? That's the fact that my kids are out of school and I'm going to just enjoy holidays with them. That's it. That's what I'm grateful for. Right. And to me, that's. It's unheard of. You know, it's unique. And the fact that we get to live a fairly comfortable lifestyle doing it is even better.

Right?

Right.

Yeah. I mean, to solve not just your money problems, which today most people listen to this podcast, they probably solve. Solve their money problems. You know, money's like love. You may feel like you never have enough, but that's a. That's a you problem. At some point, when you really do the math, most of us have enough. You might not feel like it, but that's a. That's a different existential issue. But I think that with the land business, when your passive income exceeds your fixed expenses and you're like, Tate, you can spend as much time as you want with Your family, you can go cycling, do whatever you want to do in life, and not have to worry about where's the next payment coming in, because it's just coming in regularly. But you've also solved your time problems as well. And so your time is your own. And I think that we get lost in the. The autonomy of it. I mean, you know, I talk about at boot camp, who wants to be Warren Buffett? And it was like, I'd love to be Warren Buffett, but no one wants to be Warren Buffett. He's 92 years old. Yeah, we want to be Warren Buffett in his 30s or 40s or 50s or 60s.

Yeah.

And you don't need to have billions. You just need to have enough so that you can live your best life.

Yeah. I mean, and that, that is another topic of all in its own, you know, one is enough. Right. It's funny. People come into the land business and, you know, we, we truly tell them, hey, look, there's no limitations as to how big you can grow these companies, right? Like there, there's no restrictions. Not like, oh, you hit $10,000, that's it. That's all you can do.

Right.

Some people will come in and their goal might be to replace an income. Their goal might be to put away money for retirement. Their goal might be to, you know, fund family vacations every summer or then. Their goal might be to make 50, 60, $70,000, 100 grand a month in passive income. But something happens to every single person who starts this journey, and that's at some point in time, they look at the money that they're making, they look at the work they're putting in, and they realize, this is incredible. I don't want to trade more time for more dollars. And I'm not saying that's going to happen to you at, you know, x dollar amount or this dollar amount. And the hustle never dies. Don't forget that. The hustle never dies. But at some point in time, you look at this and you go, would I, like me personally, would I rather make $1,000 extra each month but have to give up school, drop off and pick up? No, it's not worth it to me right now. I can make that money later. Why, again, to my point, there's no finish line with this business. My kids are at an age where they need me now. Right?

Yeah.

They won't like me when they're teenagers. I'm well aware of this. Right. When they want, all they want is all they viewed out is an when that Time comes, things will shift. But right now, you get to pick your balance. Can you name another job or opportunity that allows you to pick your balance?

Yeah. I mean, you know, most entrepreneurs, that's the dream. And what they find is that they've created a bad job for themselves because they're their own boss and they're the worst boss, and they're just driving themselves into the ground. And so what we aspire to teach everybody is not to build a land job for yourself, but a true business. And so you should be able to just have a laptop and travel the world. And this business continues to perform because you're leveraging other people's time, software and automation, and ultimately other people's money to scale your land business.

Yeah.

So I'm. I'm very grateful for it.

I am, too. I mean, I think back to, you know, when I got started in the land business, and I'm grateful for the mistakes I've made. I'm grateful for the lessons I've learned. I'm grateful for the opportunities I've had to help other people. But. But most importantly, you know, I really am grateful for the community. Right? For the. The people I get to associate with on a daily basis. Land investing can be very lonely. You know, people don't talk about it. You know, I could spend days in my office without talking to another person outside of my, you know, my family. But thanks to the community, I'm getting pinged, I'm getting hit up for tips and advice, and I'm grateful for that because it allows me to, you know, share something that I've worked hard to cultivate, you know, and I. I am able to learn from other people, too. So let's not write off community either as a point of gratitude. Right?

No, yeah. It's such a good point. And I feel like our community, for whatever reason, is second to none.

Well, the reason everybody in our community is, you know, the reason our community is so good is because I genuinely would have no problem going to dinner with anyone.

Yeah, yeah. No, they all. They all pass the airport test. They're just really good, solid people.

These are just. They're like us. Right? It's. Everybody in here is. They kind of share the same. Why they share the same goals, and we want to use land to hit those goals, but at the end of the day, our goals are probably more aligned than they are, you know, far apart. So that's what makes a community unique. And you can't fake that. Right? You can't. Right. You can't create that unless it happens organically. That's the thing about the people we associate with. This is organic, this is true, it's real. And that's, that's special.

No, it's, it's so special. And I, I, I got a, you know, you know, we have, we have these walkie talkie apps called Voxer. And so I'll, I'll occasionally get a voxer from some, somebody and so, and, and they're always sending me gratitude. So do you want me to re read you Brian Lark's gratitude from, from, from last week? Yeah, this is, this is such a great story. Where is it? I gotta, oh, I'm on, I'm on messages now. I'm on Voxer. Okay. So he wrote, and this is kind of encapsulates the community, right? It's like, hey Mark, hope you're doing well these days. Sorry for this longer message, but I want to give you an update on a few things. I just got back from a two week hunting trip with my two sons in Colorado and, and was able to do very little work while there. Both of my boys got their elk and one got a buck. In addition to that, if you remember, about a 35 acre property in Colorado that was landlocked for $10,000 back at the end of September. I just sold it for cash to a neighboring family member for $100,000 cash and closed just a week and a half ago. And I'm finally getting to read your Dirt Rich two book now and I'm really enjoying it. Your chapter about systems made me think of the acronym I learned for system. Saves you stress, time, energy and money. Not sure if you've heard that before, but it's a good one to remember. Again, thank you for investing in me and so many others. Hope the pics came through okay from our trip. And so he's got pics of the, of the, the hunting trip and it's, it sort of encapsulates whether you're a hunter or not. Right. But what he's doing is he's spending time with his family, he's in nature and he's not having to worry about his business and he's, he's making life changing money. This guy's a former pastor. It's not like he had a Harvard MBA and he's coming into the land business and so that kind of gratitude and really Huberman. What I'm, what is his first name again? Andrew Huberman. He talks about the science of gratitude. And really you. The, the most dopamine hits when somebody else gives us gratitude. So when I tell you, Tate, how grateful I am for you and you being in my life and your friendship and your support, that actually is better for you than it is for you to just go and write in your own gratitude journal. You know, you're grateful for your family and your health and, you know, all the blessings that life gives you. It's actually better to read someone else's gratitude towards you, which is interesting science. So if you read someone else's gratitude, we all have people who. Who give us gratitude. And you can listen to that Andrew Humerman podcast as well. He talks about it. That's a. That's a great hack. Especially when things are stressful and in some way your. Your suffering. Right. In some. In some weird way, right.

You're.

You're chasing a goal or something happened. Maybe you're. You're at a tough, you know, point in life with something, and maybe relationships like this time of year, right. Relationships can be tough. And then you just rewind the tape and you're like, gosh, I have so many things in my life to be grateful for. And you step back and you just immediately change that state of mind, and you're in a better place than to enhance those relationships. Love it.

Yeah. I mean, gratitude is key. Everybody, you know, at the end of the day, everybody has something to be grateful for, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. And it's helpful to take a little bit of time to reflect on that gratitude, because if you don't, I think you miss out on some of the simple pleasures in life. So. Loved it. Great podcast.

Great podcast. And I'm grateful to our listeners as well. And you'll be hearing this after Thanksgiving, but hopefully you had a really great time with family, friends, community, and were able to reflect and. And think about all the things that you do have in your life and. And not sort of, you know, moving the goal posts and then chasing another. Another desire which could end up actually making you unhappy. And I love that quote. We're not happy because we're grateful. We're. We're not. Yeah, we're not grateful because we're happy. We're happy because we're grateful.

Yeah, Good. I don't have anything else to add to that. That's. That's a banger of a quote right there.

There you go. Well, we're at that point, Tate, I'm going to ask you for your tip of the week. A website, a resource, a book, something else actionable for the art of passive income listeners to go improve their Businesses improve their lives. What do you got?

Well, you know, I'm not typically one for tips of the week anymore, but given the fact that you're listening to this in December, it gives you plenty of Runway to think about what's next. And what I mean for that is where do you see yourself at the end of 2025? Where do you see yourself in the land business? What progress have you made? What goals have you hit? I would invite everybody who listens to find some time between now and the end of the year to do a little self reflection on their entrepreneurial side of their, of their life, which is their land business, and write down some goals and then most importantly, write down how you're going to achieve those goals. I know I do this. I know Mark does this for a fact. In fact, everybody I know who is successful in life does this. So if you're not doing this, find some time can be in a journal. There's a million apps out there. There's some. You can do it on a pen and paper. Find some time, write down what you want, where you want to be, and then how you're going to do it. And you might need to network, you might need to raise capital, you might need more inventory, you might need more VAs or team members. Whatever it is, circle it, revisit it often, frequently, and focus on hitting it right. We use the 12 week year. It's a strategy that I love, recommended to anyone. But find what works for you and your team and, and hold yourself accountable to it.

I love it. I love it. And dear listener, if you are grateful for this podcast, do us a little favor and boomerang back the gratitude to us. Just follow rate, review the podcast. It takes about a minute and you can send us that screenshot of that review to support thelandgeek.com and we're going to send you a signed copy of Dirt Rich. But even if you don't want the book or if you have the book, just do it because it, it really helps us and we get better guests so it ends up benefiting you Anyways.

So for my signed copy of Dirt Rich too. What the.

Well, we have, we haven't even officially launched out there, so you know, we're doing an official launch. So if you're, you know, if you're waiting, you can keep waiting. It's going to come out at official launch with lots of goodies and bonuses and all that. So that's, that's why I'm not talking about it too much. If you don't want to wait. It's out there, but.

And it's good.

I'll definitely. There. It's signing for you.

It's really good. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, let's do it, man.

How awkward is this going to be?

It's going to be bad. It's going to be really bad. But we're not going to break. We're not going to spit in the eye of tradition, right?

No. 100%. I'm grateful that we have this tradition.

Dear listeners, please turn the volume down.

One, two, three, let's. Freedom. Oh, that was bad. I even forgot the let's part.

I just said freedom ring. So sorry, everybody. That's.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I. I gotta ask you, are you excited for the new show, Landman?

You know, I saw a commercial for it the other day. I was like, what is this? It looks good.

It looks good, right? Billy Bob Thornton.

Yeah.

John Hamm.

Yeah. I mean, I'm excited, I think.

Does Debbie Moore in that?

I don't know. But I will be watching it. I'm not sure what I'll think of it. Hopefully. I mean, it's a different type of land, man. Right. Like, I think the price of the movie is different, but it's going to be Hollywood and whatnot. You know, they're not going to make our line of work look cool. I doubt that. But I don't think you can make this look cool.

You can't make it look cool. This is the most boring real estate niche there is.

But it should be boring. Like, I tell people all the time, if your land business is exciting, you're doing something wrong, man.

Yeah.

Because we want boring. Because boring equals repetitive, and repetitive equals predictable. Repeat. Predictable equals scalable. Right. Like, if you're not boring, you're not scalable.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I used to. I used to get a twinge of jealousy when I. When I'd go to, like, these networking events and I would talk to the multifamily guys, they tell me how many doors they have.

Yeah.

But at the end of the day, they had so many more headaches as well, so I'll take boring.

Boring is good. Boring is like I say, but when.

I was younger, I didn't want boring.

I got kids. I don't. I got plenty of excitement in my. In my regular life. I don't need it in the business. Right. I want boring in the business and exciting outside of it. So.

Yeah. So, speaking of exciting. So it is a Litchfield tradition to deep fry the turkey. Now, rumor has it that, you know, lots of people end up burning their houses down doing this?

Yeah.

Why is this so dangerous?

Well, because people are dumb. That's why. You're gonna deep fry turkey, you know, like, you get your oil, it's all hot, and you try to add like a. A turkey into it, and if it's got any sort of moisture or if it's, heaven forbid it'd still be frozen, that's going to cause the oil to overflow and it's going to go into the flames down below and that's going to start a fire. And if you're, if you're deep frying a turkey, don't do it in your garage. Right. Like, come on, common sense. People don't do it near your front or your back door or anything like that. You got to have some distance between you. We've been deep frying turkeys for 20 years. That's me knocking on wood. And we've never really had an accident because we take our time and we do things the right way. We dry off the turkey and it's fantastic. If you haven't had a deep fried turkey. Eric Peterson and I were talking about it last night. You know, he's gonna smoke a turkey this year, but he asked me if I was smoking a turkey and I was like, no, I'm just, I'm going old school. I'm just gonna deep fry it. It's good, it's juicy. Everybody eats it. Just gonna do it.

So, yeah, I mean, once you've had a deep. A deep fried turkey, I don't know if you can eat it any other way.

You know, Eric's turkeys look good. Obviously when he's cutting them, they are juicy and moist and all of that, but, you know, Eric's an exceptional cook. He made us that chili that one time, remember?

Yeah, yeah.

That guy knows how to barbecue. People. You don't know this about Eric. We give him a hard time, but that guy can cook.

He is cook. He can see, can smoke.

Yeah, yeah, he's just down. So.

Yeah.

All right, all right.

Well, this is fun, man. Yeah, thank you.

I appreciate it.

All right, take care.

See you. Bye.

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