083: Flipping Raw Land

SHOW NOTES FOR EPISODE 083 –  FLIPPING RAW LAND WITH MARK POLDOLSKI

You’ve heard of flipping houses, but did you know that there are also people who are making a killing flipping raw land.  In this episode, Mark Poldolsky shares his personal story of how he stubbled into flipping raw land, made more money than he ever dreamed and is now sharing this untapped real estate investing niche with others.

What You Will Learn

• How Mark turn $3,000 into $90,000 in a few weeks

About Our Guest

Mark Poldolsky

Mark J. Podolsky (AKA The Land Geek) is widely considered the Country’s most trusted and foremost authority on buying and selling raw, undeveloped land within the United States.

He has been actively investing in Real Estate and Raw Land since 2001 and has completed over 5,000 unique transactions. Mark’s company, Frontier Equity Properties, LLC, is an A+ rated BBB real estate company.

Mark has achieved this level of success largely due to his core business philosophy – “Happy Customers Guaranteed.”

Mark is the host of one of the top rated podcasts in the Investing Category on iTunes aptly titled The Best Passive Income Model and The Art of Passive Income. He is also the host of the Land Geek Podcast- Work Smart. Earn More. Learn How.

More About Mark

• Was an investment banker in Phoenix, AZ
• Working with private equity groups, mergers & acquisitions
• Used to do deals $5-500 million in enterprise value
• Hired a guy who said he was buying and flipping raw land for 300% returns
• He was used to looking at companies where 14% was a great return – 10% average
• In 2000, went with his friend to a deed auction in New Mexico with $3,000 and just did what his friend said to do
• Bought 10 – ½ acre parcels at average $300 each
• The following week, he put the parcels online, selling for average of $1,200 each
• Took that money and went to another tax deed auction in Arizona, buying properties for $5 and $10 – made over $90,000
• Hated his job and wanted to quit. Wife said “no”
• Kept doing land flipping on the side until the land flipping income exceeded his investment banking income
• In 2001, Mark quit job and has flipping land ever since
• Made a lot of mistakes but because the cost is so low, you can recover well

How a Mistake Turned Into Profit

• Bought 40 acres of land for $2,500 and later found out it was on a mountainside, with no access
• He figured he had to just get rid of it as soon as possible and was hoping to break even or lose no more than $500
• Put it up on eBay. It sold for $32,000
• He talked to the buyer and told him it was on the side of a mountain but the buyer said he knew that.
• The buyer was a movie director from Los Angeles who didn’t want to have to purchase filming permits to film there so he bought the land

His Strategy

• He looks for property where out-of-state owners owe taxes
• Looks at the comps and divides the price by 4 – giving him a huge margin of safety
• He’ll send a “top dollar offer” of $.20-.30 on the dollar
• If the guy wants to sell, he does the due diligence – pays $11 for a title search
• Hires someone through Craigslist for $50 to go out and see the property. Take pictures, film video.  The person will also fill out Mark’s “Property Report” which asks questions like:
  • What are the neighbors like?
  • Is there any dumping?
  • Is there a road for access?
• Mark will have his VA (Virtual Assistant) get the GPS coordinates and use an app called called “What 3 Words” to identify and label the property
• Buys the property and closes
• Starts marketing the property
• Within 30 days will either sell it for cash at a 300% return on investment OR…
• Set up owner financing to create monthly cash flow.
  • One time sale
  • Usually gets his money back with the down payment or within 6 months of the down payment
  • Has reoccurring monthly income
  • Without “tenants, toilets, trash and termites” associated with other rental properties
  • Don’t have to deal with foreclosure if they stop paying

Identifying the Best Land to Purchase

• Goes to:
  • google.com
  • landwatch.com
  • landflip.com
  • Sees where other people are buying land
• Focuses on top states where people want to invest or live and that have the biggest buyer pool (Texas, Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Florida)
• Does county research

How Much Time Does it Take?

• He has automated much of the process
• Spends average 2-hours a week on the process himself
• Last year they did 192 deals
• Created his own software program to manage the notes
• Uploads a list, the offers go out

Biggest Mistake

• Not having a mentor
• 2001-2006 was doing great
• Went into new area – Treasure Lake in western PA (beautiful gated community, 3 lakes 2 PGA rated gold courses, multimillion dollar homes)
  • Overdeveloped
  • Had 1,000 of lots just sitting there with liens on them
  • He flew out there to talk with them, negotiated with them
  • Bought lots for less than $50 per lot
  • Bought in 2006
  • Made $100k in 2006-2007
  • 2008 – market tanked
  • He should have bought only 10 at a time
  • Even though he made $100K, with expenses and his time he probably broke even

Biggest Success

• Bought property from a public company that only wanted the mineral rights for these areas in Nevada
• Bought up sections of properties, 640 acres, sub-dividing them
• Made over $5 million dollars

Advice for Those Interested in Getting Started

• Make a tiny investment in land ($1,000) to test it out
• Educate self
• Test it for themselves
• Get a list from the treasurer
• Send out a few offers
• Get comps, divide by 4 and offer $.20-30 of the dollar
• Do your due diligence on the ones that come back
• Check out
  • Ingress and egress
  • Can you get to it?
  • Call planning and zoning, find out what can be done with the land
• Put an ad on craigslist on easy terms (i.e. $500 down – $249 per month)
• Or go to a professional to do it for you and have someone like Mark manage it and do it for you

What Land to Never Buy

• He goes to EPA.gov to find out where super fund sites are
• Doesn’t buy in New Jersey, northeast
• Doesn’t buy in Churchill County Nevada (bomb testing)
• Needs to have access

Don’t be a “Land Snob”

• Passed up a deal in an ugly place in New Mexico because he thought it was a joke
• 20 miles from town
• In the middle of nowhere
• His buddy kept buying and selling in this area
• Mark told him to get a refund
• His buddy sold 100 parcels – No refunds.  No lawsuits
• Made a lot of money
• What you might think is ugly and removed may be great to someone else

What’s the Future for Mark’s Business?

• Has two businesses: Frontier Properties (investing) and Land Geek Enterprises (education)
• He’s focusing a lot on the educational side
• Loves teaching and seeing people succeed
• Very gratifying, For Example…
  • Scott Todd (one of his students)
    • Laid off from Fortune 300 company
    • Able to replace his income flipping land in 17 months
    • Has more money and freedom than he ever had in the corporate world
  • Mark sees land flipping as a largely uptapped area – great opportunity

His Land Geek Training

• Home study course
• “Flight School” – 8-week hands on training
  • Mark and team works side-by-side as you do transactions
• Boot Camps – 2 ½ day training – Next Boot Camp in Las Vegas – April 21-23
• Free Blueprint for Turning Raw Land Into Monthly Passive Income
• eBook
• Podcast
• No shortage of free information

Rap-It-Up

• Favorite real estate book: Cashflow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki
• Favorite business book: Deep Work by Cal Newport
• Most valuable web site for success (other than your own): farnamstreetblog.com
• Favorite app: Voxer
• Favorite quote: “If you’ll do, for the next three years, what other people won’t do, you’ll be able to do for the rest of your life what other people can’t do.”  Zig Zigler
• If you had to start all over, knowing what you know, and you only had $1,000, what would you do to launch your real estate investing business? He would use the $1,000 to send out offers and get back to where he is now.  Could find buyers, options, so he wouldn’t even need to spend the money.

How People Can Reach Mark

• thelandgeek.com

Mark’s Howl Challenge!

• If you want to hear Mark’s howl, just go to iTunes store, type in Old Dawg’s in the search bar.  Find our podcast and give us a 5-star rating and review.  Don’t forget to put the words “Land Geek” somewhere in the review.  When we have 5 ratings & reviews, we will release Mark’s supposedly “epic” howl.

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Check out our other podcasts at olddawgsreinetwork.com.

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Episode Sponsor: Meno Studio – menostudio777@gmail.com