Working In Saturated Counties—Should You Move On Or Put On Your Fisherman Hat?

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and on today's roundtable, we've got the technician, Eric Peterson. What's up, Eric?

Not much. Just hanging out with you guys.

It's always great, isn't it? Just to get together.

It's.

It's a great thing to look forward to every Tuesday.

Yeah, it really is. It really is. We got Bearland, Aaron Barelyn, Aaron Williams. How are you?

Hey.

I'm doing pretty good. How's everybody?

Good to see you.

Good to see you.

We've got the terrorist hunter, Mimi Schmidt. Mimi, are we safer?

I don't know. I don't have to worry about it anymore. It's wonderful.

You really. Yeah, yeah. We've got the nightcapmeister completely sober. I know for sure because he's got a cold. Scott Bossman. Scott Bossman. How are you?

I'm doing great, Mark, thank you.

Good to see you, Tate. Litchfield is still out fishing and we do have to give Tate a little shout out. For those of you who haven't watched lots yet, looking over Tate's shoulder, check that out and let us know what you think. And then, of course, last but not least, the brain, the professor, your flight school sherpa, Scott Todd from scotttodd.net landmodo.com and most importantly, if you're not automating your Craigslist and your Facebook postings, postingdomination.com thelandgeek Scott Todd. How are you, Mark?

I'm great. How are you?

Good. I'm good. Just a quick reminder, today's podcast is sponsored by none other than flight school. Get on a call with the nightcap meister, Scott Bossman, or the Zen master, Mike Zano, and learn how you can get into the May class. So, Scott Boston, just real quickly, why is flight school so special? Not just because Scott Todd's teaching it. We can't. How much more can we inflate? This guy's ego.

Yeah, right. To me, it's special for a combination of reasons, of course. Scott Todd. Who wouldn't want to learn from him? But it's a combination of quick execution, accountability group, collaboration systems and software. And you add all these things together and, man, you're going to be doing deals in no time. So it really is an acceleration program. That's what I try to emphasize to everybody. The toolkit is like a. It's like a 5,000 piece jigsaw puzzle. You have to put it all together yourself and like, half the pieces are the same color. So it's difficult. Is it possible? Yes. But flight school is a recipe, and I think we have overwhelming evidence to show it works.

Yeah, it's absolutely. It really does. And what I love about it is the execution and the fact that, you know, you've got somebody there who's kind of seen it and done it all. He's closed 800 deals. When he asked you a question, it's not like, you know, therapy. Well, what do you think about it? Like, Scott's going to give you an answer. You know what I mean? It's fantastic.

So.

It'S really something special. Learn more go to landgeek.com training and schedule that call. Today's roundtable, topic one that I think is near and dear to everyone's heart in the sense that we all kind of feel a little anxious about it, especially when things start to slow, and that is can a county become saturated? So I want to go and start around the roundtable. There's one county in Colorado that.

People.

Seem to think could be saturated, right? Because a lot of people are in there sending out offers. Eric Peterson, what are your thoughts on county saturation?

Well, I think it depends on your definition of saturation. If we're talking about lots of investors and lots of activity in a given area, you know, we might say that's true of this particular county.

However.

I think that it's important to note that just because there's a lot of people in one area, a lot of investors, doesn't mean that you can't go out there and buy property and sell property. It might be a little bit more of a challenge. You might need to find a way to stand out from others. But I know for a fact that many people still do deals in this area and myself included. So is it saturated? I mean, it might be, but it doesn't really matter. I mean, if you can still go do deals, I mean, that's what the whole land investment is about, right? Buying and selling land. If you can buy it, if you can sell it, there's nothing wrong with it.

Yeah, absolutely. Bearland. Aaron, what are your thoughts?

Well, I guess you could think about it. Think about like a city, and we've probably all seen this, where there's a certain strip and it's all car dealers, right? So that area is definitely saturated with car dealers. You can go down there and you can go to this guy and this guy and this guy and know, maybe compare deals and. But the thing is, they're there because they're still selling cars. Right. So the saturation doesn't necessarily mean, you know, you can't do business there. Sometimes it can mean you can do a lot of business there. Sometimes it means it may actually be a little bit slower, but you'll continue to do business there. So, you know, the saturation just shows that there's a lot of activity. So it depends on your, I think, your ability to do one of two things. Either wait and realize that sometimes sales may be slower, but you still will probably get them, or be somebody that's going to, like Eric said, put, put a lot of effort into standing out, you know, because that's what those car dealers do. They put up the big, you know, the air filled things that flap around, the big sale signs in the hoods, all that stuff. They stand out and they sell cars. So that's, that's kind of one way.

To look at it.

Yeah, I really like that analogy. Mimi Schmidt, what are your thoughts?

Well, you know, I'm a big proponent of placing general ads in an area as part of your due diligence before you go in and you have to make a decision with the results of that.

Right.

And so in Costilla, I have to post a lot more ads to get leads. Now I was talking with one of my coaching clients two nights ago, they posted their very first ad in this county, one ad, and got two or three leads off of it. Makes me think I need to go back and look at my. So it is possible to get really good deals there. And I think what Eric said about finding your niche, there's a lot of different types of land to sell, a lot of different areas to sell in. So you can specialize in a saturated county and there definitely are opportunities there. It's been proven by all the other investors there. It just depends upon if it's your only county and it takes more work. You're choosing to work more. Now if it's one of two or three counties that you've got and you have other counties that are a little easier to work in, then you're a little more diversified. You have to decide how you want to run your business.

All right, interesting. Very, very interesting answer. So, so Mimi, you're saying don't limit yourself to that one county. Go to a couple other counties as well.

If you can find a way, find a way to differentiate yourself and you can do well there, go for it. I think it's a great county. There's still great deals to be had there. It just takes more work and so I. I'm there. I just diversify by having some places that are a little easier to work and do deals in other places.

Okay. All right. Then they. Capmeister, Scott Bossman, what are your thoughts? Scott, you're on mute.

Sorry. I got it. I hear this question quite a bit, and I guess the way I answer it is similar to Eric, I think, and to what Aaron said. You know, there may be a lot of people working in a particular county, but it shows there's a market there, and it has not necessarily slowed down my deals there. I've picked up a number of lots and sold a number of lots there this year. I think I would agree with Mimi. I think I'm getting fewer leads on different market platforms, But I also have a very strong buyers list for this state. So, you know, that's something that I think beginners really need to think about moving forward is generating this buyers list and get it going. And that's one of the things people don't do soon enough, because those people, those leads I picked up years ago are still on my list. And I'll still get emails from them saying, you know, this is a beautiful lot and I'll sell lots for my buyers list. So I would say it's been kind of a combination for me. I agree with maybe that on some platforms, it might be a little bit more difficult than others when you're marketing. But as far as my buyers list goes, it's strong. I know that people want land there, so I'm working there. And I think I'm going to leave it to Scott because I think he's going to talk about kind of the massiveness of this market, and maybe he even has a little data for us. But. But I still get people in this county that say they haven't, you know, they might get an off. They might have gotten a couple offers on their property. I mean, we've been mailing there a long time.

Yeah. I mean, knowing Scott Todd, he already has some type of Fibonacci spreadsheet.

Yes.

No, No, I don't think. Thanks for putting me on the spot there, Scott. Bossman with. I'm sure Scott's got some data, which I have. Any data.

You gave us data, though, a couple months ago on this subject? Yeah.

Might be a little dated. But look, here's the thing. The thing is that could a market become saturated? I think a market could, in fact, become saturated. However, when you look at the size of some of these areas, it's not like an infill area, like a City where there's just a limited amount of land. The thing that makes this niche beautiful is that we're dealing with areas where there's a very large swath of land out there, more land than what we can actually, you know, kind of all touch together. Now, for example, Elko County, Elko County, Nevada, is 4 million acres large. 4 million acres large. That's a lot of mailings to a lot of people that own land. The population density out there, I think, is about one person per square mile. So it's not like a city like New York City, where the population density is massive. There's nobody out there, but yet there's all this land. And the thing about land is that it's always coming available. And what I mean by that is there's always somebody that doesn't want their land. There's always someone that has decided at this point, like, I'm done with this land. That's what's beautiful about this thing, is that it's not like in New York City. Everybody would be fighting and boxing it out for this one little patch of land because it's limited where we're dealing with in this rural market, there's so much land out there. That's why the prices haven't changed that much, because it really goes back to supply and demand. So can a market become saturated? It can become saturated. When I looked at the numbers before, you know, I was able to look at kind of mailings by APN number to see, like, how many times is this particular APN number getting mailed to in the life of LGPAs? For example, remember in LGPAsmark since we launched LG Pass, what, about two years ago? Two and a half years ago. Somewhere in that range.

Right, right.

So about 700,000 letters have been processed through LGPass in two and a half years. Okay, that's a real number. However, they're not all going to one area. And then when you pull by county and look at, hey, how many times has this one specific APN number been hit? When I pulled it back in, I think it was like late last year. Like one particular APN number at random had been mailed to like three or four times over two and a half year period. That's not a lot. It really is not a lot. But the thing is, is that we get anxiety when someone says, oh, well, I just got another offer letter this week. What's going on out there? Well, I hate to tell you this, but the people that you're trying to buy the land from sometimes they lie. I mean, I hate to break that news to you, but they do lie. And you know they're coming at this piece from a negotiation standpoint of they want the most money. So if they can tell you, oh, somebody else is interested, then you know what, then maybe you'll pay more. But if you know your numbers, hey, what I always say is, hey, if you can get more from that guy, go for it. But I'm the real deal. I can close in seven days. And you know, they got to do what they're going to do and I can't control that. I got to move on to the next person. However, you know, the most important thing here is that if you believe, truly believe that the market is saturated, if that's even in your brain at all, like, oh, this market saturated? Well, then you might as well choose another county because if you believe it, your perception will drive the reality. And so while everybody else is doing deals there, if you truly believe that or you have that self doubt, then you'll find justification to support your approach or your thoughts.

Yeah, absolutely. I think what everybody said was really, really. And I'm gonna throw out a big word here. Sagacious or wise, right? Scott Bossman, eyebrows raised. So I can only throw that word out because I just was on a college campus visiting, so I felt very intellectual. So getting from an intellectual standpoint, right? The market is the market. If the market is saying to you there is high demand for that area, then investors will go there, right? What you will find is when you put on your fisherman's hat, right? Some people go out and fish and if they don't get a bite or two in the first hour, they go back home, oh, there's no more fish out there, Right. Other people will hang out there eight hours and they'll catch some fish and they'll be super happy. This place is great. Some people like myself will hang out there for 18 years and they will keep catching fish because they will keep showing up because they know that there's fish there. And I don't care if on one day or one week I don't catch any fish. I know there's fish there. I know they're delicious. I know they're going to make me fat and happy, right? So in that essence, from that point of view, I'm hanging out constantly. Now if Eric catches a bigger fish than me, great, I'm going to call Eric and say, hey, look, you got too many fish. I'll buy some from you wholesale in that area. Because I Know I can sell them. So to me, the market is massive. I don't care. I will outlast everyone because I'm patient and I know my numbers. So, yeah, go ahead, mail to my county. I don't care because I'm gonna keep showing up and eventually someone's gonna accept my offer. And if they want to negotiate, we'll negotiate. That's fine. You know, when you've got 300 to a thousand percent margin of safety, there's room for negotiation there for sure. Even if I had to double my money in that county because it's so white hot competitive, which for as long as I've been doing this, has never gotten to that point. But even worst case, if I had to double my money, I'll double my money. Where else can I double my money but Tesla stocks down like 12% or something. I mean, where else are we gonna do that? ERIC Peterson Anywhere else we can double our money that fast, that easily?

No, and not, not without the, I mean, not without taking on more risk. You know, I mean, certainly there's probably possibilities out there where you can double your money, but you're taking on a lot more risk than you are in our business.

Yeah, absolutely. So I think that to Mimi's point, there's nothing wrong with going to other counties that you know are profitable. But inevitably, what Scott said is so true. This is a mental game. Scott. Todd. Right. If you think that county saturated, you won't have the patience that you need to be successful in that county, then go to another county. Right, But I think it's not knowing sort of the fundamentals of business in the same respect that MasterCard, Visa, Capital One, you're constantly getting these credit card offers in the mail. Well, how can they afford to keep doing that? Because the margins are so big, they need what,.01% of you to accept it and it's profitable. It's the same thing with these profitable counties. So just keep showing up, keep fishing, make money or don't. Right?

Yeah. I mean, I want everybody to succeed. But you know what, Like I, like you said, I'm gonna keep showing up. Mark.

Yeah, I mean, it's a marathon for sure. It's not a sprint. And you'll see that, you know, because of just the inherent difficulty of showing up consistently in any business, there's going to be times where people are going to, you know, enter the market and then they're going to exit the market because it's too hard. In the same way, so many people start working out January first, they don't show up to the gym anymore after March. Right. It's just human nature. So if you're just consistent and you show up day in and day out, it'll move the needle and you will start seeing results. Scott Bossman, is that a good answer?

That is an excellent answer.

All right, Eric Peterson, do you want to play devil's advocate?

I don't think so.

Okay. All right, well, any last thoughts on county saturation before we move to the tip of the week?

Just go do it. Just. Just go and just believe that you can do it. And just go do it. Everybody else can do it. You can do it, too.

Yeah, I think that's what it is, isn't it? It's that, well, if everyone's doing it, then this must not be a good county, or it's saturated, or if I. If I'm not getting results right away. And again, we talk a lot about this in boot camp. And Scott Todd's story of how long it took him to get his just his first deal, it's not immediate. Right. And it's just not. I wish it was. I'm actually working on a course right now that's going to try to help you get your first deal in 21 days or less. But it's. It's not passive income. It's just that quick cash flip. And I'm just going to teach you step by step how to do that as easily and quickly as possible with the hope that once you get that first win, then you will be more motivated to start building your wealth and passive income because you'll feel like this validates it for you, that I can do this, I can do it quickly, and then it's worth kind of doing it in the same way. Like, if I took steroids in January, I'd start seeing results in three weeks as opposed to the normal, you know, sort of three months before you start seeing any results, working out. Scott Todd, do you like that analogy?

I do. You know, it's funny that we're having this conversation right now, because I just glanced down on my email and I got an email from a guy in one of these counties that's saturated. Okay. And he says, hey, listen, you recently sent me an offer to buy this particular parcel we are presently in the process of selling to somebody else. Okay, cool. Should the sale fall through, I'll keep you in mind. Good. It says, by the way, we do have two other parcels in the county as well. Here's the numbers. Are you interested in either of these Now, I mean, I don't. I don't know. Like, I'd have to go look at them because they don't just jump out at me. But, like, seriously, if you're buying one, why not buy all three? Because he didn't ask. Right?

Yep.

Someone's gonna swoop in there in this saturated county and buy two more from somebody when they're buying it. Selling. Oh, one of somebody else. See, that's the. That's the. That's on timeout. There's always another market. Someone's always gonna want to sell this stuff, and they pop in. So why wouldn't this guy say to. Why wouldn't this guy who sell it say to the people who's buying someone, hey, do you want to buy these other two? Or maybe he did and they said, no, we don't know the whole story.

Yeah, it's a really good point, Scott. Are we gonna split that deal? Maybe. Maybe? Yeah. I mean, I'm. I'm really impressed that you would even share that because Eric Peterson's probably gonna take that deal anyways.

Well, I can say maybe on the call, and then, you know, it fell through. I don't know, Mark. Like, I don't know, man. It all depends. You haven't been razzing about the Panera Bread lately, so, you know, we're friendly again.

That's good. That's good. All right, Mimi Schmidt, we're at that point in the podcast. Give us your tip of the week. A website, a resource, a book, something actionable for the auto, passive income listeners. Go right now. Improve their business, improve their lives. What do you got?

So I have been using this website called youtubembedcode.com and whether I've got a professional going out and creating a drone video for me of property, or I just have my photographer standing with a smartphone, or even another investor friend that's out there standing and going in a circle creating an mp4. I can upload it to YouTube and get the URL here that I can then post on my website so that there's a video to give client, prospective clients some perspective on my own. Super easy to use.

That's a great tip.

Wow.

So easy. You put it in the YouTube URL, your width, your height, autoplay, allow full screen show annotations, show title uploader, show captions. You won't even show related videos if you don't want it to. Just click, generate my code. Copy the code. You didn't, you embed it on your website?

Yeah. So it's been so it's been really easy to use so far. Haven't had any issues. It's free.

Wow. It looks like the people at Harvard made this.

I don't know anything about it. I just have been using it, and I'm happy with it.

Pretty cool. Pretty cool. Well, I thought today's roundtable was delightful and lively and informative and valuable. And you, dear listener, I hope, felt the same way as I. And if you did, please share the podcast with a friend or support us. Please subscribe, rate, and review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of that review to support at the Land Geek Calm. We're gonna send you for free the $97 passive income launch kit. And that really helps, so please do that. So, Scott Bossman, are we good?

We are great, Mark. One last point I would make is that how many people do we see start flight school and go to this county because it's a great county to get data and resources, and they succeed right away. They start doing deals right away. That's one more thing I wanted to add.

Well, that's because they're mailing to and they're marketing right away. And if they don't, they have to face Scott Todd's mini bat, which is frightening.

It is frightening.

Yeah, I think that's. That's the beauty of flight School Z is the accountability. Like, you're not showing up on flight school. Be like, oh, Scott, I didn't mail. I didn't market. Like, no one's doing that. Then you got to deal with your group. I'm just kidding. There's no hazing. But you do feel the pressure to execute.

Well, why wouldn't you? I mean, like, you know, that's the thing is you. You want to change, and the only way to get things done is to actually do it.

So, you know, that's true. That's true. Beer line. Aaron, are we good?

We sure are.

Awesome. Eric. We are Great. Great. Mimi, great.

Agree with Eric.

Scott Todd, Mark.

We're good.

All right, so 1, 2, 3.

Let's read on.

That was so weak. Yeah, this is, like, my fault.

You were dragging.

Oh, well, I feel like this is like the dog days of boot camp because we got boot camp coming up in a few weeks, and everyone's, like, getting ready and, you know, not really thinking about the end of the podcast necessarily bring. Bringing that energy.

Is that really what people are thinking?

I am.

Oh, okay.

I'm such a narcissist. I just think everyone thinks like me.

Hey, Mark, you know what? You know what's bad is that.

You.

Know, like, you use. You use this adios right in your Gmail.

I do.

My adios is stuck in adios mode. Like, I haven't received emails in days. It's, like, kind of cool because nothing is coming through.

Wow.

Yeah.

Do you feel anxious or you do you feel, like, free?

As far as I know, there's no emails trying to reach me at all because they're not. They're just not showing up. So I. I'm. I'm good, man. Like, I'm happy. Life is good.

That's crazy. So how's your Reddit addiction going?

No, Reddit is gone.

It's gone?

Yeah. Like, it is literally. Like, I haven't been on Reddit in, like, forever, and, you know, literally, I don't think. I cannot think of the last time I jumped on there and even looked. And I'll tell you what, like, I've been getting stuff done, so that's a good thing.

That's good. That's good. Nice. Beer land. Aaron Diva. Any kind of tech addiction?

I don't think so. There's a game I play, and it's like, it'll be kind of a reward. Like, I'll finish a task, and then it takes, like, six minutes to do, like, one battle or whatever in this game, and I'll do one, and then I'll put it down and go do another task. So I don't know if that's an addiction or, like, a reward thing, but. No, I could, like, live without my phone and everything else. I don't. I'm just not probably that. My wife could probably tell you I have probably several addictions because I don't notice them, but not that I know of.

She'd probably say, you're addicted to love.

Oh, boy.

Might as well face it.

Mark, I do have a. I do have a question for you, though.

Yeah.

How is your son liking his surface?

Oh, my gosh.

He couldn't find it.

It was in the trash.

No.

Oh, no, it's still there.

I. I have to say that the dark side has really infiltrated the Podolsky household.

Oh, your wife?

More ways than I can anticipate it. Like, so we're at Indiana University doing a college tour, and of course, like, during the orientation, they asked, what's, you know, what laptop should my son or daughter have? You know, a Mac or a PC? And of course, the person there was like, the dean from the. The Kelley School of Business. And he said, well, you can have both, but if you have a Mac, you're gonna have to get Microsoft, you know, bundle, because it works so much better.

Yeah.

The Apple applications. And my son with the Surface is, like, smiling at me, and he's kind of like doing the na na, na, na kind of thing to me and just flaunting his superior.

Yeah.

You know, product. And then. But I'm walking around and I'm seeing, like, there's. It was mainly Max Campus, so just a very creative vibe, if you will.

Sheep Followers. That's. That's what we call them, you know, she followers.

Okay.

It's okay, Mark. It's all right. Okay. You will convert over to the. To the side, too. I know. It's just a matter of time before you realize. Like I will tell you, though, I had. I was doing something the other day, and my Surface was upstairs, and I don't really feel like going upstairs and getting it. And I look and I had, like, my MacBook Pro that I hadn't used since November sitting there. I'm like, oh, this will work. And I fired it up and I'm like, it does have a good feel to it, but it didn't get me enough to, like, swing back to the other side. I'm like, I still like the Surface. And I'm like, man, if Mark and Eric could see me now, they'd be like, oh, what are you doing? But it's just out of convenience. It was just out of convenience.

Yeah.

I mean, I was trying to touch the screen and I'm like, can't touch the screen. Stupid Mac. I don't know.

I don't even know what to say because I think that right now it's just a really good product. It's really strong. Who would have thought?

Rice.

Rice. I mean, the only. The only thing I can say is that I do know that just from developing Geek Pay, that there is a. There is a software component to Windows that they're not agile. Right. That whole. That was starting off with the waterfall concept. It's always gonna be like eating gruel. I mean, you can put lipstick on it. Right? Which they did. But underlying all that code, there's just a lot of code in there. I mean, Microsoft keep building market share and then go back to those. I'm a Mac, I'm a PC commercial, and then just have. Just have you watch it and then see your antivirus software just destroy you.

Well, I haven't. I don't have, like. I haven't had the need for any antivirus software. And you know what? I haven't had too is on the Mac. Whenever I would, because I had the MacBook Pro, I would plug something into the little. Like, I'd have to take the little dongle. You know, the dongle. I don't know the dongles, but, you know, the dongles. I had to take the dongle and plug it in, and then the Mac would, like, freeze, and it would go to, like, oh, kill the process kind of deal. And it would freak out and stop and crash. I don't have any of the blue screen at death or anything. I haven't had to restart this machine in, like, ages. So, you know, next time your machine, like, freezes on you, and they're like, oh, I can't get the speakers to work. I can't get the thing to work, Just think of me.

Erica. I think I've got a good nickname now for Scott. The Dongle. That's you, man.

You guys are the dongles. I'm gonna get your shirts made. The dongles.

Didn't you have to have a special dongle at Boot Camp last time to make that surface work?

Well, only for the. It was only for the video because I had to come out of the video. That's all I needed. But Mark had to have three dongles on his machine to power up Boot Camp. You know, I only had to have the one for the video. Not bad.

All right, well, I'm gonna go eat some Cheesecake Factory. You guys have a great day. Thanks, everybody. And we'll see everybody next time.

See you later, Mark.

Thanks, Mark.