Seth: Hey, everybody, how's it going? This is Seth Williams and you're listening to the REtipster podcast.

Today I'm talking with Michael Leigeber, the founder of LandSearch.com. So I first heard about LandSearch.com a few years back when a member of their team reached out to me. And even back then when I first checked out their site, I was like, wow, this is pretty cool. And I had used it a handful of times over the years, and I just kind of remembered the site in the back of my mind. And I figured, because it was so easy and intuitive to use and, in my opinion, designed much better than a lot of the other big name land listing platforms out there.

And I've actually found some deals on the site before I figured we should talk with these guys and figure out how does the site work, what does it bring to the table, how is it different from other land buying and selling platforms out there. And Michael is going to help us understand what this site is all about, who it is and isn't for, and what kind of unique value it brings to the market that may be of interest to all the land investors out there.

So, Michael, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

Michael: Thanks for having me. I'm doing great, thanks.

Seth: So maybe you can just start by telling us the story behind the creation of LandSearch.com, like, what inspired you to start an online marketplace specifically for vacant land properties. What's your story behind that?

Michael: Sure, yeah. Well, my background is kind of a wide range of tech and marketing roles, and I co-founded a digital marketing agency just outside of Nashville. And we did a lot of work just in the outdoor space generally, but one of our bigger clients was one of the country's largest recreational land brokerages.

And from that experience of helping them grow their digital marketing and seeing what works for them from a brokerage side, and then the interaction with them too, at that time is kind of an independent LandWatch and CoStar sites. I just got a sense of some opportunities and it felt like land marketplaces were quite a bit behind residential marketplaces, and residential marketplaces still had a lot of room to grow. So I just felt like we could do something better, so I left my agency a number of years ago to focus exclusively on LandSearch.com.

Seth: What year was this when LandSearch.com became a thing?

Michael: We launched in March of 2020, and it took us a little while to kind of get the platform built and ready to go, obviously before that happened. But, yeah, we launched right at kind of D-Day for COVID and all of that fun stuff.

Seth: Yeah. And just looking at the site currently and how well it's designed and how well it's laid out, it seems, from what I know of developing websites, this has taken a ton of work to create what you have so far. Is that accurate? Do you have a big team and stuff? It just seems like a big undertaking to make something that's made this well.

Michael: It is a huge undertaking. We've done everything in-house. We're trying to kind of do it right. And because we're a small, lean team, we're able to try things out and explore opportunities for the user experience and how we kind of present data. And obviously trying to do that in a way that is relevant to land buyers and showing them some different things that you wouldn't see on kind of a typical residential marketplace.

Seth: To the listeners out there, if you haven't been to LandSearch.com, I mean, if you're at all familiar with Zillow or just the way that these websites have kind of been designed to work over the years, it's a pretty familiar looking feel. It’s a very simple design, it's a simple layout. There's not a whole lot of opportunities to get lost or confused. So I definitely encourage you to check it out if you haven't been there already.

And looking at this from the standpoint of a land flipper, which is not necessarily the same as just any general land investor out there, usually we're looking for super-cheap, discounted deals on the buy side. And then when we sell it, we're basically looking for something like LandSearch.com, like a really well-made website that has a decent-sized audience that can get it some eyeballs to look at the thing.

And it makes me think, when you put together a website like this, how do you decide who to prioritize? I mean, obviously the answer is both buyers and sellers. But if you're up against the wall and you have to decide the buyer is more important or the seller is more important? How do you ultimately decide, who are we trying to prioritize here?

Michael: Yeah, that's kind of one of those typical problems in a marketplace is the chicken or the egg problem. They call it supply and demand. And for us, we felt like to be competitive in the market in general, we definitely had to have a significant supply. People don't go and shop at mom-and-pop websites as much as they do Amazon. There's a lot of stuff on Amazon that you don't want to buy, but you go to Amazon because it's all there and you want to be able to see everything.

And obviously with land, there's so much inventory, it’s just kind of all over the place, rom land sellers and investors, obviously that's your audience. But then a lot of off MLS, commercial and agricultural, a lot of low-dollar residential might not be on MLS.

So we definitely have worked hard to build up that supply because we feel strongly that if you build up enough supply and a big enough audience, then obviously the two pieces kind of come together. But without that supply there's just not enough audience interest to keep generating more supply. So they have to come together at the same time and I think we've kind of gotten there.

Seth: Would you say it's the sellers then? Is that sort of who matters more? Because without the sellers there are no deals.

Michael: Yeah, the seller is definitely where we start. Without the sellers, without the supply, there's not going to be any demand. Definitely. Day one we launched our marketplace with hundreds of thousands of listings and zero visitors. But that was what was required to grow that user base.

Seth: And where do these listings come from? Does it come from the MLS or is it from private owners who manually get on there and just post it on your website? Or where are all the places they come from?

Michael: All the above. So I think right now we work with well over 500 different MLSs through different aggregation or directly with the MLSs. We have direct feeds from land brokerages that maybe a lot of their inventory is not on the MLS. And then we have an increasing number of land investors that some of them have enough inventory where they built out an XML feed for us and others are just manually posting individual properties.

So there's other partnerships, integrations, I mean, just like I was mentioning, there's just so much inventory all over the place in land that we have to get creative on pulling that all together.

Seth: So if I’m hiring a real estate agent to list my vacant land properties and sell them, can I just assume it's going to show up on LandSearch.com or do I have to say, hey, do something to make sure it shows up there?

Michael: Yeah, so it kind of depends on what MLS you're working with one way or the other. Probably your broker has to opt-in all of our properties, we don't steal anything, scrape anything, it's all kind of opt-in inventory. So your broker may have to opt-in or you may have a checkbox in your MLS system directly where you can say syndicate to LandSearch.com. It just kind of depends. So you'd have to let us know what your MLS is and we could tell you what your options are.

Seth: So I guess that broker might have to pay something extra to get on LandSearch.com if it's not already there or I guess it just depends on who they are.

Michael: No. So we don't charge anything to syndicate your listings to us by default, unless we don't support your MLS, or there are fees to kind of get things set up, or you're in a really small MLS that we don't support and we just don't want to kind of have the burden of those fees when it's really just your inventory. But I would say, for 95% of agents if not more, we'll have an option for you to syndicate for free.

Seth: And if I'm just a small guy, just one person, land investor, and I have one property that I want to list on your website by myself, without an agent or anything like that, is that free or does that cost money? Or what does it take to make that happen?

Michael: Yes, free. So you certainly have the option to pay us for promotion, and we would appreciate that.

But one of the things that really differentiates us from the other land marketplaces in particular is that we do give you the option to post for free. We feel like it's super important from a buyer's perspective to have as much inventory in one place as possible. Our goal is to have the most inventory of any land marketplace, and we're pretty close to that. So letting people post for free, just kind of lowering that barrier to entry is an important part of our business model.

Seth: When I go to your website and I click on Sell Land in the navigation bar, it shows me a little pricing page. There's Standard, which is free, but it says limited visibility on all your properties. What does that mean? Can you explain that a little bit?

Michael: Yeah, sure. Basically taking promotion out of the mix for a minute, we look at the quality and completeness of listings, and that's based off of all kinds of different criteria. Anything that could be relevant for land. If you fill it out and fill it out well, that's going to give you an advantage in our marketplace if you pay for promotion.

Essentially, when you hit a location or a tag or a type or some kind of entry point into the website, we're going to be showing promoted listings first, give or take. We give them a huge advantage as far as what that ranking, that default ranking looks like. And that would extend to other places on the website outside of property search, our agent directory, homepage, email, marketing, social media.

Basically, when you're promoted, we're all in for you and trying to kind of squeeze as much visibility to relevant buyers. So if you're selling a $20,000 piece of land and somebody's looking for a $10-million ranch, we're not necessarily going to try to push that on that person. But all things equal, we try to get extra exposure on those promoted properties.

Seth: When you mentioned earlier, if you fill out your listing and fill it out well… what does it mean to fill it out well? Are you looking for a certain amount of text in the description or just fill in all the blanks or what does that mean?

Michael: Yeah, I mean, we definitely have some guidelines around listing description length. I won't kind of get into the details on that because I don't want anybody to game the system. But we look for enough data to be helpful. We expect every piece of information to be geared towards the listing and add kind of helpful context so we score them based off of the quality of the images. Is there a video? And that may be a rare thing for a lot of land investors to have super high-quality original photography. We see a lot of land sellers that are maybe just kind of taking screen grabs from Google Maps and embedding captions and we don't allow that kind of thing to begin with.

So land sellers have a harder time just because maybe they're not on site and they just don't have a lot of information. Or maybe it's a piece of land in the desert and there's only so much that you can say about that. But we do try to kind of filter out, no all-caps, it’s got to be properly written, grammatically correct, and then including the baseline stuff. We expect an accurate location, as much like partial numbers, that kind of thing. And then we have a lot of attributes that we capture where you can kind of describe what is the current land use and if there are utilities available, that kind of thing. So just anything that you know about the property, you should fill out because it does impact your score.

Seth: Yeah, it makes me think of… I’ve got a buying website that's designed specifically for motivated sellers to find my website and submit their property information to me so I can then make them a discounted offer. And seeing over the years the different kinds of submissions I get through that, where I ask very similar questions to what you would probably ask when people fill out a listing. You know, like where's the property, what is your name, just very basic stuff.

And people are just astoundingly unintelligent or something and they don't pay attention to what they're doing. They can't even spell their own names when they submit it to me or the whole all-caps thing, or just misspelling everything, or incomplete sentences. When I look at the very reasonable simple stuff you're asking for, including things like latitude and longitude and driving directions, I can just see a lot of people screwing this up. Even though it's not that hard, they still would.

So how do you manage that? Like just human incompetence where they can't follow simple instructions, but you still need to present a good product to your buyers out there.

Michael: We haven't solved it for sure, and I don't think we will, but we've got little helpful tool tips and stuff throughout the process and direct people to rules and guidelines along the way. Like, these are the things that we allow in descriptions. These are the kind of media that we allow. Some people take the time to read the rules and some people clearly don't.

I would say, of the manual submissions that we get, maybe half or more get rejected and we try to give them very helpful rejection feedback, like, “These are the things that you need to solve.” And one of the things that we require is we need to be able to verify ownership. We see a lot of fraud even happens on the MLS with real estate agents. And so that's part of our kind of trust and safety layer that we need to feel good about the inventory and platform.

So whether we can't verify ownership through the assessor's website or there's significant issues with your listing, we'll give you a bulleted list of feedback. And that's very time-consuming, obviously, for us to kind of manually review each new listing that comes through manually. But we do that and most of the feedback just does not get addressed.

So it's an unfortunate thing. There's a value exchange here. Obviously we're offering to market your property for free and we do expect some level of investment from your side. Just giving us a normalized clean listing that fits in our marketplace. You may try to drop in a listing description that has all this sales jargon and contact information and different payment methods, just things that we don't want. We want your information split out into their respective fields. So there's a consistent experience if somebody goes from an MLS listing to a land investor listing, they feel the same. It's the same experience for buyers and that's difficult for some sellers.

Seth: Now this whole thing you sort of touched on the fraud issues that are becoming more and more prevalent and verifying ownership. How do you verify? I mean, you just ask for their name. Couldn't they just figure out what the name is and put it in there and then change everything else?

And this is not your fault. This is just the very antiquated way that we transfer real estate these days. There are so many opportunities to lie and cheat and steal from people right now. I mean, it's got to be a huge challenge, right? Like, how do you make sure people are not scamming others on your website?

Michael: Yeah, for sure. And ultimately it's buyer-beware. I mean, we can't be in control of that entirely, but we look at a lot of different things as far as just who's completing the submission. We look at their IP address, their threats or block lists or anything associated with that user, where are they posting from, even the quality of the listing and different things can be red flags.

So we look at the assessor's website, we compare that to the person that's posting their actual contact information. If we can verify that on other websites, obviously, if it's a land investor, it might be a business or something that we're looking at, trying to look at the reputation of that business. Especially the first time that you're posting as a land seller. We're kind of really digging into you as a company. Do you have a good reputation or a bad reputation and just deciding are you a fit for the marketplace.

But yeah, so sometimes we require people to email us ownership information, so it might be a deed or something like that, that they have to send us a copy of. And usually we get pretty good compliance with that on For Sale By Owner listings. Sometimes with land sellers, they just don't want to take the time to verify things and the assessor, it takes some time to kind of get that up-to-date. Sometimes it might be a recent purchase and sometimes land sellers reach out to us where they have a marketing agreement. They haven't technically bought the property and we have to see the contract on that. So it's really a one-by-one type thing.

And even on the MLS we'll get messages from people saying, “Hey, my properties for sale in your marketplace, take them down or you're going to talk to my lawyer.” And it's an agent that's actually representing that. So we'll contact the agent and let them know and they're usually pretty helpful in that process. But sometimes there’s a little bit more gray area, like I'm going through a divorce and my spouse doesn't have the rights to sell that. So we can't get in the middle of that. We definitely try to connect them with the agent and say, hey, listen, it's not just us, these are other marketplaces that's on the MLS, you need to work with the agent. And sometimes they have tried that, but they've failed and are reaching out to us. So it's a very difficult thing, case by case.

Seth: Now, I'm curious, what are you doing that no other land listing websites are doing right now? How are you unique exactly?

Michael: So I would say, first and foremost, just the scale of our platform, the growth. We have over 3 million visits a month right now and growing. We've grown about 65% over the last twelve months. So we're on our way to be the most popular land marketplace. That is our goal, as I mentioned earlier, just aggregating a lot of inventory that maybe other marketplaces aren't as aggressive. To just try to get all of that in one place, our business model in that you can post for free. I don't know if that really exists in another major land marketplace, I don't believe. That's something that's very different for us.

And when you do reach out to us for promotion, we feel like our prices are very transparent and fair. And then just from a user experience perspective, I think we're doing some things better. You go to LandSearch.com and it's really a map-centric approach and we got a lot of unique features as far as how we're showing those on the map. As far as down to the parcel level, we've got a parcel inspector. You can kind of really do a lot of due diligence just in search results, toggle different layers. You can see public lands, water features, floodplains, a lot of different things that we're doing to just add value for that person. We don't know if they're looking for a commercial lot or residential lot or AG or whatever that might be, but trying to add as much value, add information as we can, and extract enough structured information about that listing.

So we describe ourselves as a land and specialty real estate marketplace. And the specialty real estate side, it's really like, what does somebody want out of a piece of property? What are their attributes that are important to them? So that could be they're looking for farmland. That's pretty straightforward. But what if they're looking for a hobby farm or a homestead or a cabin or a tiny home or mobile home, whatever those might be. We've got a lot of really popular tags and attributes and trying to kind of draw that out of a listing, where maybe that's just in the listing description. So we have to really look at the context of that listing and understand, is this a tiny home? Does this have a cabin on it? Because we don't always get accurate information from the MLS.

So I think all that just together, just creating an experience that's built around the land buyer and the land seller definitely differentiates us from a residential marketplace. And I think even amongst land marketplaces, hopefully we're doing some things a little bit different.

Seth: Yeah, for sure. I know every land investor out there is probably very familiar with the struggle of a lot of the tools out there were, understandably built for house investors, because there's way more of those than there are land investors.

So sometimes the things that land investors are most interested in just don't exist on the platform, or you kind of have to back into it or use different logic to figure out what you're trying to figure out. So whenever you see something like LandSearch.com, where there's a lot of features in there that are unique to land people and they're there and available, it's super refreshing just to see like, wow, somebody actually understands the things we need to know about.

So I guess when I think about things like Land.com or LandWatch or other well-known land selling platforms out there that cost money (and sometimes a lot of money to post anything there), it sounds like one of the big competitive advantages is that you don't necessarily pay money, but you can still get exposure through your platform, which has a lot of people looking at it.

I mean, 3 million is huge. And just looking at LandWatch on SimilarWeb.com (according to that, which isn't necessarily spot on), but it looks like they're getting about 4.1 million views per month, which isn't that much more than what you're doing. And I also don't know how much innovation there is going on there in terms of making more tools available. And expanding the market and that kind of thing. Whereas you seem very much in innovation mode as any new company should be, which is good and really refreshing.

Michael: I think that's right. We don't have a sales team right now, period. And I know if you kind of look at our competitor, their team is probably mostly salespeople. And we really believe in product-led growth and we didn't come out of the gate trying to kind of go by the same playbook as anybody else, whether it's CoStar or other land marketplaces. Yeah, we're just trying to be different and kind of innovate and we've got a ton of stuff planned over the next couple of years. Our ultimate goal is really to just make land ownership more accessible. And a big part of that is kind of where we've started, which is the land marketplace itself. But a lot of people just don't understand the process. And obviously podcasts like yours and others help people maybe understand just kind of some of how all this works.

But if you're coming to our site, one of the biggest questions that we see in Leads is just like, how does financing work? Can I get a loan on this? That type of thing. We want to help people connect the dots from the discovery to the purchase, whether financing or not, and then through to improvement. Are there some things that you need to do as far as grading or digging a well or doing different services that are really land-centric? Not the kind of thing that you'd see on Home Advisor necessarily, but we just want to kind of take somebody from that purchase to the point where they're going to build a home or whatever they're going to do with it.

We can kind of connect the dots, and that's really what we are. We're an unmanaged marketplace in that regard. We don't get involved in the transaction at all. Leads go directly to the sellers, but we want to connect the dots through that entire journey.

Seth: I know there's a lot of different land flippers out there who have legitimately good deals that they've found at deeply discounted prices, and now they're trying to sell it at a smaller discount. So not full market value, but more than what they paid when they bought it. And trying to find these deals all over the internet, it just feels impossible because some people post them on Craigslist and others on Facebook, and others on LandWatch, and others on LandSearch.com and others on Zillow, and others have a broker to do it all for them and it's just all over the place. And some people don't list them at all. They just have a cash buyer's list that they email every time they have a new deal coming to the market.

I dream of having one central place where I can be notified every day or every week: “Hey, Seth, here's all the new great land deals out there!” But it's basically impossible because it's all over the place. And even if I joined, every single email list of every single land flipper out there. Some people don't maintain those very well and don't really use them. So in a perfect world, I could create this system where I can just get notified of all the stuff that's relevant to me. Like, “I want to know about deals in this state, in these counties of this size, between this dollar amount with these features. Tell me about them when they appear.”

Does LandSearch.com have anything like that where I can get like constant notifications of stuff that fits a very specific criteria?

Michael: Yeah, absolutely. So you could say, go to our listing results page, we've got a draw tool. So if you've got a very kind of complex search criteria, maybe I'm just looking for a piece of property in the Rocky Mountains. And unlike some other websites where they don't let you zoom out really far and do things, we know that land buyers are often looking at a very large range of geographies. So you can draw a shape and then you can start applying criteria to that, no more than this price, at least this size, these attributes, no HOAs. There's different filters that are very land-specific and then create a search for that.

And you can be emailed immediately, daily, weekly. It's kind of up to you how frequently you want those, but we send tens of thousands of listing update emails every day. A lot of those are saved searches and definitely that's something that we're trying to solve for.

Seth: How are most people discovering your website right now? It seems like on the selling side, if you've already got as many listings as you do, it seems like a lot of people already know about you or MLS feeds are sort of already plugged in. Maybe there's opportunity out there for individual sellers to be more aware of, you know, manually visit your site and post their listings.

So then that makes you wonder about the buyers who are coming to your website to shop for properties. How are people finding you? Is it just Google search or what are the biggest funnels where people are like, oh, LandSearch.com, I didn't know about this, and then they get plugged in?

Michael: About two-thirds of our traffic is new each month, so we got a third of our traffic just kind of comes back and they're creating accounts and really engaging with the platform. But for those new visitors each month, 95% of our traffic is non-paid in some way. So the vast majority of that is organic search. We get tens of millions of impressions on Google each month, so that delivers a lot of traffic.

And then we do some paid marketing. But really the lifeblood of any marketplace is going to be those non-pay channels and we do some things with social and referrals and stuff like that too. But it's really mostly people going to Google and they've got a very specific thing that they're looking for, whether it's land in a location, a specific type of land in maybe an area. Or that really granular, like long-tail type thing where it's I'm looking for a tiny home with at least ten acres in Arizona. So we've really built a platform around trying to kind of match the intent of that searcher with a landing page that really gives them what they're looking for.

Seth: Is there any way that you make sure that the listings are fresh and current and well-maintained? Like, I can just think of some people who would list a property and it sells and they just forget to take the listing down on LandSearch.com. Like, do you just automatically remove stuff after 30 days or something? Or how do you stay on top of that?

Michael: Yeah, I mean, basically at the MLS level, everybody's required to have up-to-date information. That doesn't mean it's always the case. We list leases and auctions and sometimes auctions would have expired and a lot of times those don't come off. So we have rules around that, like is the auction so many days in the past, we'll remove it.

But just for-sale properties in the MLS, we process those every couple hours, so at most it's generally that fresh. For Sale By Owner properties or anything that's directly posted, we send you an email on some cadence, I don't know exactly, but basically you have to go in there and click a link and say, yes, this is still accurate. Otherwise it'll come off after a certain number of days. So that's definitely a problem with a For Sale By Owner listing up, they might forget that it's on there, but hopefully we're sending them enough leads.

And sometimes that's how it happens is like, hey, I just got a lead on this, but I sold it last week and that's how we'll find out. But yeah, we definitely try to stay on top of that.

Seth: On the whole quality control piece, I know there's wide variations in quality that you probably get, as we mentioned earlier, even just in terms of the pictures that end up getting uploaded, if any. So do you have a human reviewing every single listing that gets uploaded, or is it only the ones that come from For Sale By Owner listings? It just seems like a huge task to stay on top of that.

Michael: It is a huge task, yeah. So everything that's manually posted is reviewed and we build up a certain level of trust at the seller level where once they've posted enough properties, some things are kind of relaxed as far as just how deep we have to look at the property. We certainly don't have to verify ownership at a certain point, if we kind of get to that level of trust with the seller. But yeah, we have to look at everything individually down to every specific image and read the entire descriptions.

I mean, it is time-consuming to do it and there's a lot of feedback involved that a lot of times goes unaddressed, as I mentioned before. But it's just something that, hopefully, once we get through the process on the first listing or two with a seller, like a land investor, for instance, they kind of get the gist of what our expectations are and generally moving forward, they do a much better job of meeting our criteria.

Seth: What would make you say, “No, this is not going on our website?” Like if somebody doesn't upload a picture, or if the description isn't there, if it's written poorly, or how do you decide? Like, “This does not pass the sniff test. You're not doing this.”

Michael: So we do require a description and it has to be a certain length or you cannot post it. You can post without pictures, but your quality score is basically going to be zero. I mean, it's just kind of a non-starter for us.

And then other things as far as just if you're not filling out parcel information or you don't select any attributes or there's just nothing else value-add in the listing, your score is going to probably be exactly zero. So when somebody goes to without sorting by price or anything, that's going to kind of override the default sorting on LandSearch.com, somebody's going to have to go to the last page to find your property.

So we do allow it. Sometimes photography is tough for land sellers and like I mentioned earlier, we don't allow screen grabs from different applications and tools and different things like that. If you have very flashy graphics with sales jargon and contact information, we don't allow any of that. So by the time that we tell you, you can't use these four images, that might have been the only four that you uploaded, so you're left with nothing. So at that point, take it or leave it. If you want to post without an image, we'll allow it, but it's certainly not going to get a lot of exposure.

Seth: Like if I've got a Google Earth screenshot with a little box over the parcel that I'm selling, is that okay? Or what kind of screen grabs are not acceptable?

Michael: So those are copyrighted assets. Google states very clearly that you're not allowed to use those. You can make an argument against fair use on those. So I wouldn't say that we are overly zealous when it comes to policing that, but we definitely don't allow the UI of the tool to be included. We don't want to confuse people that, oh, here's like a zoom button, or here's this panel, I can click on this in the image and it's confusing.

So we expect just really bare photography. You can definitely do like aerial shots and kind of show some context of some labels, but we don't allow somebody to embed like captions or sales stuff for watermarks or any of that kind of stuff. We expect it to be really geared around being helpful to the user, not trying to be promotional, and it needs to feel high quality. We score listings better with higher quality. We don't just look at other images, we look at what's the resolution is. Is there a dense concentration of a certain color that might indicate that it's like some kind of graphic instead of an actual photograph?

So we don't allow stock images. For instance, a lot of land sellers will try to upload, “Here's a park 30 minutes away,” or that kind of thing. We don't want your description or your images to represent anything other than the listing at hand. A lot of times the description will come in and it's just talking about the area and we want you to talk about the property. So it's definitely difficult sometimes on some of the listings coming from land investors.

Seth: Have you thought of any interesting ways to use AI in this process to make it easier to provide property descriptions or anything like that?

Michael: We have, we've explored taking the attributes outside of the description and letting ChatGPT generate those. And we've played around with it and it's interesting.

One of the things that we don't allow is redundancy from the description as far as just listing out, like here's the partial number, we've got a field for that, you need to put that there. But ChatGPT has done some interesting things as far as it will take those attributes and write it in a very natural way that does require a lot of investment in the other attributes. You have to have something to pull from. So we need to know that it's in the desert and that maybe it's got utilities or a septic system installed, some different things worth describing. Otherwise, there's not much for ChatGPT to go off of, but we are exploring that and probably in the future we'll have a auto-write description button, and hopefully it'll be used more as a starting point than this is just I'm going to let it generate and move on.

Seth: For anybody out there who is interested in how you can possibly use ChatGPT for this kind of thing. I've got a video I put together a few months back showing people how to create property listing and descriptions and headlines and all this stuff based on some basic information about the property that you can feed it, and then you can really explain to your heart's content what you want out of it. And it will give you a pretty good property description and it's not going to do this on its own. It needs some kind of prompting and it needs to understand what you want. But as long as you can do that, it's pretty cool.

So I'll include a link to that video in the show notes for this episode, retipster.com/165.

One thing I was noticing as I was going through the process of trying to post a property listing on LandSearch.com was it looks like you can list it as a For Sale, a For Lease, or a For Auction, which I thought was pretty interesting. So how does that work? It seems pretty straightforward if you're just listing it for sale. But if you're trying to do an auction, does that mean is it like eBay where the winning bid has to pay you through LandSearch.com? What happens to the deal after the winner wins it?

Michael: Yeah, good question. So we don't actually facilitate the auctions. So basically you have an option there for a bid URL. You're probably going to be using some third party if it's an online auction. If a real life auction, then you can put the address, the location, and time when that auction will occur.

Seth: Okay. And then if somebody wants to list their property for lease on your website, it's probably the same idea, right, where they're just listing it for sale, but it's just the intent is to not actually sell the property, but just to lease it out for a period of time?

Michael: Exactly, yeah, we don't facilitate any of that. But let's say if you have a hunting lease, you can say, “I want this amount per month, it's for this use, for this duration minimum, that type of thing.” So you can set up all the terms and conditions for the lease.

Seth: One thing I've noticed on different land selling websites that I know has kind of frustrated certain individuals is they'll try to list a property with owner financing and the terms of that deal will be one dollar down and then X number of dollars per month after that. And so the listing price for the property that they'll put on there is one dollar. So it shows up near the top of the list if people are sorting it from cheapest to most expensive. It's kind of a way to just gain possibly unwarranted attention because of how you're making it look.

But can that happen on your site? Or do people, since humans are reviewing this stuff, would they catch that and not allow that?

Michael: Yeah, I definitely wouldn't allow that. We expect the cash price, if you will, to be the listing price now in the description. You may have a higher price if owner financing is involved, and that's totally fine. But that's kind of the exception to the rule of us not allowing prices in the description at all. Yeah, we catch anything like that, we expect the price to reflect the actual purchase out the door as far as the cost of land is concerned.

Seth: I'm assuming seller financing is a somewhat common thing that you see, right? Is there like a box you can check to say this is with seller financing? Or could potential buyers sort properties by only the ones that offer owner financing or anything like that?

Michael: Yeah, absolutely. It's one of our tags and it's definitely one of our more popular tags. Those seller financing properties draw a lot of leads.

On that note, about 10% of our 340,000-odd listings are under $20,000, but around 20% of our leads go to that same set of inventory. So there's definitely a high demand for lower dollar properties. Half of our leads go to properties under $80,000 and that's where you see a lot of that owner financing. And it makes a lot of sense.

Definitely we don't get that information that comes through structured from MLSs. So we work really hard to kind of dig into the listing description and decide, is that actual owner financing? And if you think about that, there's a lot of different ways that somebody might say that it's owner financing and they'll use the same phrases in the context of we don't do this. So there's a lot that we have to take in to try to get those characterized correctly.

But when you're loading a property manually, absolutely, just a checkbox say, yes, owner financing is available.

Seth: Do you have any success stories from buyers or sellers using LandSearch.com or any creative ways people have used the website, like the filtering criteria to, I don't know, almost like a “hack,” for lack of a better word, to find opportunities that others might miss or anything like that come to mind?

Michael: I wouldn't say that necessarily anybody is exploiting anything that we don't want to happen. This week we're actually rolling out a whole new set of attributes that really get more fine-tuned than what we have now that would include things around land use and improvements. So if there's a waterfall in the property, if there are stables, if there's a creek (creek is our number one search term; we already have riverfront and beachfront and waterfront, but we don't have anything about creek).

So I think that's just one of the advantages of LandSearch.com in general, is that we really try to pull out characteristics that are really big buying factors for somebody. So when you're posting your property, it has to be current land use. So a lot of people come in there and say tiny home, mobile home, house, cabin, cottage, or whatever it is. And it's like just because you could build those things on the property doesn't mean that's appropriate. So it has to be kind of current land use. But definitely maximizing those will get you a lot more exposure on LandSearch.com.

Seth: Just to make sure I understand the difference between tags versus keywords. So like for example, the word “creek,” that is not an available tag that I can see. That's just like a word that somebody happened to include in the property description, is that right?

Michael: No, that is a tag now, that's kind of one of our new attributes. But before, people would just have to search for that. But you might get cities that have the word creek in the name of the city. There's so many false positives in that. That's why you really want to have that structured data to make sure that is what you're looking for.

Seth: Yeah, because I'm just thinking through that because, I know I've tried this on Zillow before, searching nationwide for certain property types or keywords in the description and that kind of thing. And I might be searching for “creek,” but they use the word “brook” or “stream” in their listing, not “creek.”

Is that a similar thing to I guess when I look at the keyword search option on LandSearch.com, is that how it works? Like what it's pulling from there? Is it the description or something?

Michael: We kind of accumulate a lot of different attributes. It might be legal description, name of the city, parcel number, MLS number, a lot of different things kind of go into that index for keyword search and we'll correct things like typos and stuff like that. So we look for similarity on words.

But if it's just a synonym, that's the kind of thing where we really have to have a structured field because we can say a “brook” and a “stream” and we kind of normalize those things into the intent of what it is. And that's really hard to do with keywords. And like I was saying, with owner financing, if you went to Zillow and searched for owner financing, you'd get a bunch that just say “no seller financing available.” You know, we can kind of avoid that.

Seth: I don't know if you have anything off the top of your head, but are there any particularly interesting or unique pieces of land that have been sold on your platform?

Michael: Yeah, we've seen things like land with unused missile silos from the Cold War and a lot of interesting, kind of off-grid bunker style properties and tree houses and yeah, just all kinds of interesting things for sure.

Seth: That's cool, man.

You probably saw this a lot once 2020 hit, and it sounds like that was when you first opened up the doors to start operating. But in 2020 that was a big year with a lot of stuff that happened for the real estate market in general. And land is no different in terms of, all of a sudden rural vacant land became a lot more interesting to a lot more people who were trying to flee the cities and get out of there. And as a result, prices went way up and sales volume went up and all this stuff for vacant land, which it was something that we just had never seen before.

Have you noticed any ongoing changes in the types of customers using your platform since the pandemic or have things slowed down at all? Have you just seen anything, any big waves in general as a result of 2020 and the fallout from that?

Michael: Yeah, like I said earlier, we launched March of 2020, so we don't really have a great baseline of what was normal beforehand. When we launched the marketplace, we had, I think just over 400,000 listings. Once things kind of got crazy with the inventory crunch, we were down to maybe close to 250,000 listings. We're back up to around 340,000 listings.

There was definitely an inventory crunch there for a little while and prices on particular types of property just got really expensive. If you look at a Google Trends search line, you can see that the real peak of interest in land generally is past and a lot of those were tire-kickers. But obviously with the decrease in inventory, there were a lot of purchases happening too.

And I think it's just kind of combination of a number of things, not just the work from home. Pre-COVID, I saw a survey recently that said 5% of people kind of could work from home all the time. That number is 35% now. So that represents tens of millions of people. And you add on top of that new ways to connect utilities and internet. So solar has come a long way and then we have things like Starlink for internet and the government is pumping tens of billions of dollars into rural internet right now. So for most white collar work from home people, you have power and internet, you can do your job, more or less.

So all that's going to come together, that opens up a lot of opportunities to move outside the cities.

Seth: I'm curious, I don't know how much concrete data you have on this. Of all the people who do really well on LandSearch.com, in terms of selling, like they list their properties and sell them fast or sell a lot of volume, do you have an idea why they do so well? What are they doing to sell them quickly? Is it good photos, good descriptions? Probably all the above.

But I guess what I'm getting at is are there any obvious best practices we should all be employing when we use a website like yours?

Michael: Yeah, I think first and foremost price and location. Kind of the obvious things, be on the middle to lower end of what's reasonable and you'll probably sell your land quicker than the rest.

But as it relates to just the listing itself, like we were talking about earlier with the quality score, the media is just kind of key, and I would say photography even more than videography or anything else, but just being able to really present the listing really nicely. And if it's a big tract of land, the drone aerial photography does extremely well.

And we capture analytics around individual image views. And in our search results view, you can actually cycle through all the images. So our job is to really try to inform people as much as possible before they even click into the listing. Because chances are, after you kind of see the price, the location, you've cycled through a few images, you can either say, “Yes, I'm interested,” or “No, I'm definitely not.” And if you're not interested, we have a little hide option. So you could hide that listing and it'll never show up in your search results again, or you can favorite it and then get updates and notifications on it.

So media is probably the most important thing.

Seth: I wonder, is there ever a time at which you're providing too much information? I think of this is going to be a weird example, but back when me and my wife got married, we had a wedding photographer and she gave us literally every single picture she took. And it was up to us to pick out the ones we like best instead of her just kind of picking, “These are like the 10% of the best, like the cream of the crowd that I think you should go.” And it was almost like, overwhelming, like, whoa, this is just way too much to even think of. Like, just whittle it down for me.

And I think about a land listing where it's like if you get a photographer who takes hundreds of pictures, I mean, there's probably a limit to how many you can upload anyway. But whether it's that or how much information you put in the description, does it ever sort of sabotage your success as a seller if you give people too much information, should you kind of whittle it down to, I don't know, the most important few key things, or have any thoughts on that?

Michael: Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know if we've run into it where it's been just an egregious overuse of imagery. We actually don't limit that. So on some large ranches where you actually have or you might have multiple structures and thousands of acres, you might need a couple of hundred images to kind of get through that.

And what we've found is, more times than not, when somebody starts a gallery, they finish the gallery. So it doesn't really matter if you get ten or 100 images. When somebody starts, they're probably going to see everything. So that's keeping them engaged on your listing and maybe opening up some ideas and thoughts about how they would use land.

As far as the description goes, we do see that a lot. And a lot of that's the case where the agent tries to attach a lot of boilerplate about “Here's about me, here's about nearby areas, here's all these different things.” As long as you're kind of sticking to relevant, helpful information on the listing, I think it would be hard to probably put too much in there, but it could definitely happen.

Seth: Do you have any insight on when people list their vacant lots on LandSearch.com and the thing just doesn't sell or it takes a long, long time, like it sits there just for months and months and months.

Do you have any insight as to what went wrong? Like did they not use good pictures or any pictures or is there any common thread where it's like, here's why this person didn't do very well because they didn't fix this problem.

Michael: Yeah, I mean, sometimes it's something obvious like it's landlocked or there's some issue. We got a message one time—we have a report functionality on listings—and somebody reported that this property was a former nuclear waste recycling facility. So there may be something that's just keeping you away from that property.

But I'd say nine times out of ten, it's just unreasonable pricing. And especially now, as kind of we're coming back down to reality, people are having to kind of reevaluate pricing and some people are okay if their property sits on the market for years and years, and maybe the right buyer will come along; they're not in a hurry. And a lot of times, especially with MLS properties, lower dollar, there's just not a lot of financial incentive for the agent to get out there and hustle. So they may not spend a lot of time on the description. There may not be a description or any attributes or barely a photograph. So that's probably partly the fault of the agent in that scenario.

Seth: Does LandSearch.com have any tools available to help people understand the value of a piece of land? Kind of like Zillow's Zestimate? I mean, whether you think that's accurate or not. Or anything, even a creative way to use LandSearch.com to understand comps and the market and that kind of thing, is there anything available or anything in the works that would be available in the near future?

Michael: Yeah, obviously just using LandSearch.com's primary search, you can just get a sense of comps in your area.

We have a price tool, so it's just LandSearch.com price and that's a popular kind of SEO destination for us where we show you how much acreage and price per acre and average price and stuff by state. And you can kind of filter some things and look at a lot of times people are looking at it to see where can you buy the most acreage, where is land the cheapest. So that tool can also kind of give you a sense of from an average price per acre perspective in particular, what does that look like? And we're working on letting you get to drill in deeper than the state level. So that should be more helpful in the future.

Seth: Yeah, I would think if there's any way to go and narrow it down by county or something. Are you familiar with PRYCD at all? P-R-Y-C-D. Ever seen that website? It does a lot of this stuff for you, using data from First American, just kind of understanding market values and stuff on a county by county basis and like, sales volume and I don't know, there might be a way to take those kind of tools and mash it up with LandSearch.com.

Michael: That sounds great. And just in general, I'll say that we're wide open to feedback and suggestions. And like I was saying earlier, we want to be kind of that tool that makes land ownership more accessible. So understanding like is this an appropriate price to sell or buy? Definitely a part of that.

So we're not touching the Zestimate stuff yet because we don't want to alienate everybody because that is a polarizing metric. But it's definitely something that's interesting.

Seth: I mean, it's already somewhat controversial for Zillow, just dealing with houses, which are fairly easy to value, but with land, which is much harder to value, I'd almost think you'd be asking for all kinds of trouble if you tried to do that.

But on the same coin, because it's such a tricky thing, people are hungry for answers. So I don't know, there's got to be a way to find this happy medium where you're not promising people any values, but you're at least giving them some vague pointers that point in a general direction. But I'm glad it's not my problem to figure out because it's hard to figure that out.

So what's next for LandSearch.com? You kind of mentioned a little bit earlier some of your roadmap ideas. Any big goals for the next year or anything that you're planning to get done relatively soon or anything come to mind?

Michael: I would say we're still just kind of focused on building up our audience. We're a young brand, just a little over three years old, so we're all in on being number one from a traffic perspective. So we've got a lot of just SEO projects and different things in place to try to get there. We've got a very well-established incumbent, so it's going to take some work to get there, but that's our goal first and foremost. But then we want to kind of extend that journey into financing improvement and beyond.

Seth: Awesome. Well, Michael, thanks again for coming on the show. It's been awesome to meet you and talk to you and learn more about LandSearch.com. If people want to check it out, they just go to LandSearch.com, right?

Michael: That's right.

Seth: And I can vouch for it. It's very easy to use. I've found deals and bought properties through LandSearch.com before, so I know it works. It's legit. And yeah, I think it'll be really interesting to watch this website over the next several years and see where it goes.

Michael: Thanks, Seth. We appreciate you having us.

Seth: You bet. Thanks again. See ya.

Seth: Hey everybody, how's it going? This is Seth Williams. You're listening to the REtipster podcast, and today I'm talking with another real estate broker specializing in vacant rural land. His name is Adam Mikesch.

Adam was really strongly recommended to me recently when I asked the REtipster Community to let me know about some good land agents and land brokers. Adam's name was a very prominent one that came up and I thought, let's reach out to this guy and let's grill him and see what we can figure out about how to find a good land agent, how do you know when you have a good one, what you should expect from one, and get a lot of insights on the selling process so we can either figure out how to sell properties better ourselves, or preferably find somebody like Adam who's really good at this so they can do the job for us.

Adam is an avid outdoorsman livestock owner, landowner, and wildlife habitat enthusiast, and he's just known as a reliable and trusted resource in the real estate industry. Adam is the vice president of Premier Farm Realty Group & Auction, and he is the managing broker in one of the states that they operate out of, which I believe is Missouri. Adam, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

Adam: Good, thank you guys for having me.

Seth: Awesome. Maybe we just start with your story. How long have you been working as a land broker? How did you get into this business? Tell us how this all came to fruition to bring it to where you are today.

Adam: Absolutely. I've been in the land business since 2015. It was something that had always intrigued me, not so much from investors' perspective, but just being attracted to all things outdoors as a lawn outdoorsman, recreationists, anything outside I love it.

I had learned about different brokerages and the benefits that one can obtain by being engaged in real estate from various perspectives. And it's something that I strongly started to investigate at that time. I knew of a couple local brokers that operated in my market. I reached out to them to learn more and one of them picked me up the same day I called them and the rest is history.

A handful of years later, I graduated up to the vice president of our managing brokers and we've got a pretty strong staff along states across the world west and we are continually growing from day to day.

Seth: Wow. So, how many people do work for Premier, and what states are you guys in?

Adam: Absolutely. As of, I guess, this week, we're adding new people all the time. I think we're up to about 25, 26 agents. We represent clients in different states across the Midwest, on primary states on Missouri and Illinois. But we do operate in Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Kentucky and now Arkansas as well. Arkansas just added to our list at the end of last year.

Seth: Oh, that's awesome. Being in Missouri, your role in particular, all the properties that you deal with, is that just specifically in Missouri because that's your home base, or do you ever do stuff in any of the other states?

Adam: Yes. Most of my direct sales of my own do occur here in the state of Missouri. I'm licensed myself in three different states. Missouri, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. But most of my sales occur here on the east central southeast side of Missouri.

Seth: What was the motivation to getting licensed in those other two states? Is it often that you deal with properties there and what made you pick those two specifically?

Adam: Absolutely. Our brokerage was found at Apollo on land. That is our forte. From recreational properties to agricultural properties or just all things land. We had since grown and opened a residential division. We do also support the residential market across our territory along with commercial properties as well.

But those states in particular, as we're centralized here west of Missouri, were obviously expanding around ourselves, targeting states that are highly saw laughter for recreational and agricultural interests. Minnesota and Wisconsin being two of those states. And I pursued those states myself more so from a leadership perspective to obtain a broker's license so that we can legally operate in those states and agents that are local to those markets would operate under reach my license.

Seth: To be a managing broker, what does it take to get to that point? You have to start… is it an agent that works underneath a managing broker for a number of years, or how does that work?

Adam: Correct. Each state has a different real estate commission, which is typically the governing body ensure the licensing, and they have different requirements. Most of the time, there are two components. One component is a number of years acting as a salesperson on age eight, and a number of transactions. Some states either require that those transactions be of a certain tier before you can obtain the next level of licensing.

That's the path that I chose. Most of my sales all occurred in the state of Missouri before my first brokerage license. And that's typically how each of the states operate. Some states do recognize and accept reciprocity. If you're licensed in one state as a salesperson, some of them may have less of a requirement for you to obtain an equivalent license in that state. And the same thing goes to the brokerage licensing as well.

Seth: And I assume this is your full-time gig, right? This is all you're doing.

Adam: Yeah.

Seth: Okay. Are there people on your team that do this kind of part-time?

Adam: Yes. It does exist and it's something that licensees or real estate agents, all sectors of the real estate industry, residential, land, commercial, a lot of them are part-time agents. They have another primary source of income. And just based upon their level of interest in the industry, that's how much time and effort they put into it and their sales reflect that.

Seth: Because my next question was going to be like what are the typical sizes, uses, and values of the properties you sell? Is it ever anything other than agricultural and recreational? Do you sell residential vacant lots ever, or commercial or anything like that?

Adam: Yes, absolutely. That would fall within that realm and altitudes on what market you're in. Here, as it relates to me and my direct market in Missouri, our headquarters is about 30, 45 minutes south of St. Louis, right along the Mississippi River. I reside just a little bit further south. So, most of my sales in my market here, just south, but still relatively close to the St. Louis metropolitan area are of smaller acreage just because development progress has reached this point.

I do a lot more residential lot as pertains to the land or vacant land here closer to the St. Louis area. But as we get further out, whether that's west or directly south, obviously there's been less progress and less development. So some of those acreages are much larger in size, and that's typically myself, where I will support clients with properties of pretty good magnitude and might see different molds like agricultural or literate recreational as opposed to residential development lots.

Seth: A lot of people in our community, a lot of us are land flippers. We're buying vacant lots for a pretty cheap price relative to their market value and then selling them either at market value or someplace close to that, maybe slightly discounted. And it just makes me wonder, what profile would it need to fit for somebody to bring it to you and for you to be happy to list that for them? Does it have to be a minimum value or a certain size?

For example, if I bought a property for $1,000 and tried to sell it for $4,000, I'm assuming that's probably too small for you to waste your time with. Is that accurate? What would be a minimum value to which you're like, “Okay, yep, now we'll get involved?”

Adam: Not necessarily. I think some agents out there, they may have that perspective on that example that you provided. But with me and how I support an investor, I think that might be a follower of yours. I don't turn anything down because I know that that could lead to another opportunity with that same individual. And that individual may grow into larger properties that will ultimately have a better return on the next niche for myself as they're representing the real estate perspective.

In that specific example, I would suppose that yes, I would take that on and be happy to support you. Now as it was four hours away from me and it really, really just didn't make sense, maybe I could at least give guidance on how to successfully get that property slipped as opposed to me being directly involved or charging traditional fees or additional type of property. But for the most part, I've never turned anything down. I can't say that I've ever done that to anyone of our investors or any new client that's come in.

Seth: Wow. That's awesome. Good deal. Now, what kind of commission do you typically charge on these properties you sell? Is there a range or a minimum dollar amount or something like that?

Adam: Absolutely. Typically we, as you might suspect, are based on a percentage. Those percentages can range anywhere from 4% to 7%, depending on what the property is. One thing that I like to offer, and I think it's fair to both sides, especially if it's some of them going to be doing business with frequently, is a variable rate commission. For example, as you may know, the listing agent, the representative of the seller may not always be the one to find the buyer or procure the buyer or for that property.

And at that point, we're then obligated to share the commissions with any different brokerage, co-book the property, which we're always happy to do. There's never any occasion where we wouldn't be willing to do that. This very great commission structure is typically put in place when you have that potential and usually that rate, and there are two rates, usually separated by about a percentage point.

A good example of this would be like 4% and 5% commissioning on sale price. In that example, if I were to procure the buyer on this listing, we would be at the lesser of those two rates, the 4% of the sale price, ultimately putting more money in the pocket of the client because we're not obligated to share commissions with another brokerage. Whereas if some other brokerage brought the buyer, we would be at the higher of those two rates, 5% just to make it worthwhile for everybody involved.

Seth: I've heard a 10% commission for a lot of agents elsewhere, and I didn't hear you say 10%. So, why don't you guys do 10%? Just out of curiosity.

Adam: We have heard 10% in some markets. Our market, at least where I'm at specifically here in Missouri, we don't see rates that high. There are a lot of very reputable and worthy brokerages out there that we compete with. We show that we're one of the best out there, just based on our resources, our skillset with marketing, and our industry knowledge overall.

But we still don't feel that that's in our best interest to try to be quite so competitive in the commission structure if we want to continue to grow and support our clientele. Yeah, I have heard of commission rights that high, but they don't ever reach that point here in my direct market south of St. Louis and Missouri. The most we've seen is going to be around that 7% mark.

Seth: If I have a property I want to sell, and I want to list it with you, how long does your listing agreement last?

Adam: They can vary. Pre-COVID, before the market got as crazy as it had been over the past two and a half years and how quickly properties were being moved, we always strived to have listings for about a year, depending on what they were. And that's ultimately just to give us sample time to get it out there, make sure it reaches all the various potential buyers that may be interested in making an offer on it.

And they put our best foot forward right out of the gate as opposed to limiting our ability to get a property marketed right. But I'm flexible and we don't have a standard expectation that we dictate with our agents. Our agents are able to make that decision upon their own in collaboration with their client.

Typically, we work three months. So, three months, six months, nine months, a year. Even down 45- and 60-day listing agreements just based upon the deal with the particular client. And if I feel confident that I can get a property marketed and moved from them, why not? We'll give them a shot.

And one thing that I always say to all my clients, regardless of whether they're repeat clients or not, is if we settle on something in writing and we are listing agreed by all means, if you're not happy, I'm not happy. If you're not satisfied with my services, tell me, then we'll terminate that agreement before the expiration that we put in writing. I don't want to be out there working my tail off if you're not happy with what I'm doing. So, as long as we set that line of communication and that expectation upfront, it's pretty flexible.

Now, some of you did some firms that may be a little more stringent on the policies internally in terms of contractual obligations and legalities, but with me, I'm pretty transparent for your product, and as long as we're on the same page from the get-go, there's rarely ever any occurrences or issues with seeing the deal through. One way or another, we're going to get through.

Seth: This next question is pretty broad, actually several of these questions are, but just on average, how long does it usually take for you to sell a property? If I bring you whatever you would call an average deal, whatever that means, would you think maybe three months, six months, one month? I don't know, anything come to mind?

Adam: Yeah. What the way the market has been over the last two and a half years now, we're obviously seeing some changes, with interest rates, inflation, et cetera. But there's rarely ever a property. Again, as long as the pricing strategy is appropriate for the property in the area that's been with all new variables considered, it's not unheard of to have it under contract within 30 to 45 days.

There are listings of mine that even in today's market have been out there for 90 days plus, but that's primarily due to that particular seller, client of mine had any unrealistic expectations on the pricing. And of course, we work for you. We may make suggestions or recommendations, run a comparative market analysis to tell us what it's probably worth. And based on the market conditions at the time, the other variables that might affect that value, make a suggestion.

But at the end of the day, if there's a number that you're looking for, we'll try to get it. But not always does that happen within that 30- to 45-day window. If we price it right and we put our marketing plan forward as we do for all of our properties, very rarely does it get beyond that, at least over the past two and a half, three and a half years.

Seth: Is there a point at which you would say, okay, something's wrong. There's a reason this hasn't sold, maybe we're asking too much, maybe the property pictures are terrible. Maybe something is wrong. What would that point in time be? Is it three months, six months? When would you reassess and say, “Okay, we got to exchange something here?”

Adam: It all depends on what kind of activity we've added up to that point. I'm just going to throw out a number of 90 days. If we haven't had a certain number of inquiries, whether that came from an email inquiry, a phone call, a showing request, if we haven't had an adequate number of those in the 90-day period and no offers, then it's probably time to make an adjustment.

Really, really dive into everything. See what could be the problem. Many, many times it's just price. Very rarely would we ever attribute the property not being under contract to something like poor marketing photos or not being in enough places. In our firm, it doesn't matter what type of property it is, it's going up on every single platform we have access to. The MLS system, all our signature membership accounts with Land of America, LandWatch, allland.com, network places, social media, our website, and so on and so forth.

Rarely ever is it due to our marketing. Primarily it's going to be either price or some unforeseen outside third-party factor that we just didn't really put enough weight on at the beginning, whether it's access or a neighboring property like a landfill or a junkie property that had a bunch of trash and abandoned cars and things nearby that we just really didn't recognize upfront. That's the driving factor as to why buyers aren't picking up the phone or sending an email.

Seth: That was going to be one of my other questions is, “What are the different selling platforms you use?” And you kind of just answered that. It makes me wonder, do you ever use things like Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace or some of these? They may be unconventional to a licensed broker, but for somebody who's trying to sell for sale by owner, it's like the first place to go to because it's free to do. It makes me wonder, do you bother with that since you have access to all these other platforms?

Adam: Many of our agents, including myself, we do push our properties or promote our properties via social media, whether that be LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, of course. And when it comes to things like Facebook Marketplace, we are limited in the ability to market certain properties via that platform just due to internal policies, and discriminatory things of that nature we have to be mindful of.

One of the things I do, at least for my land-focused properties or recreational properties, there are a lot of private Facebook groups out there. Missouri Hunters or Missouri Hunting Properties for Sale, things like that. I will share or boost a particular social media post about any new listing or price reduction or whatever that IP within those private groups that I'm a part of, just to gain additional exposure that those participants or followers of that group may not have seen it well elsewhere.

Seth: Yeah. Of all these different platforms out there, I don't know if you build like an email list or a text blast list or other kind of internal list that you shoot stuff to, but it makes you wonder if you could only have one of them, which one makes the biggest impact for you? Is there a particular? Like I don't know, LandWatch or the MLS or your own home website or something like that? Which one is most impactful or maybe even the top three, what would you say they are?

Adam: I would say at the very top, no question is MLS access, MLS marketing. And the reason for that is if you were to ask any other land broker, depending on which firm they're with, they'll probably tell you, we just sell land, we don't mess with the MLS. I feel that's a very poor perspective.

And the reason for that is, the MLS in all markets that various MLSs might have a reach to, you're getting much, much more than just a platform to market a property on that other brokers are going to see. There is in many cases what's called an IDX agreement that tugs all the list to your MLS membership. And what that allows is instant marketing ability on sites like Zillow, Trulia, realtor.com and the list goes on and on and on and on.

And that's something in our firm that we sign up for from day one when we get into a new market and become a part of that area's MLS is we ensure that we have an IDX agreement in place. As soon as I put up one of my listings on my local MLS within a few minutes, it instantly gets pushed to all of those other, what some would refer to as best-focused sites like Zillow, Trulia, realtor.com, et cetera. So, it just gets a lot of exposure in a very easy, very quick way.

First and foremost, I would say MLS. Any land brokers tell them to dabble with it because the only benefit of getting out of it is if they were marketing the residential property. I personally most agree.

The next would probably be, at least at this time, this changes every month, it seems. There's always some competition out there, but the land.com network. That would consist of Land of America, LandWatch, and Land and Farm.

Right now, land brokers have the ability to sign up for different levels of membership or account exposure. The highest being a signature membership, which is my brokerage, we have that, and we've had that for a long time. What that means to our clients and for our listings is that when we put a new listing up on those platforms, it shows up at the top of any filter search. At the top of the search, larger ages more predominant compared to other listings of other land brokers that don't have that level of membership.

I'd say those are the two top recommendations, in my opinion, at least as of today. Again, that changes all the time based on competition, new platforms being rolled out every month, it seems. And we are continuing to investigate those and invest in them as we see fit as the markets change. It's going to be MLS and then land.com that works, in my opinion.

Seth: That IDX thing you mentioned, that stands for Internet Data Exchange. And just to make sure I'm understanding that right, once you create a property listing and put it on your home website at premierfarmrealtygroup.com, that automatically goes out to Zillow, Redfin, all those websites. Does that also go out to the Land Network or is that a separate process you have to go through to list it there?

Adam: The only land network site that it gets pushed to through the IDX removal, at least in my example here in Missouri is, I believe, LandWatch. Land And Farm, and Land of America and a few others, we have to manually put that up on those sites and have a separate account to do so.

Seth: I wonder why that is since they're all the same thing.

Adam: Yeah. I'm not sure either. I think in the past 12 months or so, maybe no longer than that, I know the land.com network has expanded. They have since acquired I think Land And Farm. Many even consist of LandWatch as well now. We expanded upon features, but the last I checked, it does not get pushed to all three of those sites, but I believe one of them had been in place prior.

Seth: On the social media front, is there one particular social media platform that you find gets results better than the others? Or do you ever pave to boost posts or anything like that?

Adam: Yeah. At our firm, we do have a social media manager that manages our firm's account on Facebook, Instagram as well as LinkedIn. There are other platforms that other land brokers do dabble in, but we don't currently. And each of our agents is encouraged to have their own business page, if you will, for their real estate business. And I do as well. I typically manage my own social media platform where I will post every single one of my listings. Anytime it goes on their contract, anytime that sells, anytime the price gets reduced along with other relevant content to just build my following and my clientele base.

And yes, I do pay to boost many of my listings to reach a much broader audience than just my followers on social media. As far as which platform we receive most success from, I'd have to lean toward Facebook. I think that's probably still the biggest player in the game. I know there's Twitter and Instagram and a few others, but I still feel that our most success comes from Facebook exposure as opposed to LinkedIn or Instagram.

Seth: Yeah. It's a good question. I know there are ways to do this, but it can be tricky to really know for certain that, yes, this post on Instagram was what brought the person in. Because I know with a lot of the social media stuff and even Craigslist and all this, it just feels like a lot of busy work, just a lot of posting and clicking and renewing ads and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Sometimes it's like, just tell me what works so I can just do that. That's why I ask in case there's any clear answer. And it sounds like it's not surprising that you say Facebook because you're right, I would agree with that. That's usually where I see a lot of activity and I think a lot of people in the audience can probably agree with it.

There's a lot happening there. And maybe it's one of these confirmation bias things where, well, yeah, that's because you're putting more energy behind that one, of course, it's going to get more results. But either way, somehow, whatever causes that to happen, it does seem like Facebook is a pretty big force in that realm.

Do you think there is such a thing as unsellable land? And if so, what would make that the case? Property that just will not sell for any reason? Have you ever had any property like that where you just couldn't get the thing to move?

Adam: Very few. I'm trying to think of one that I just could not get sold. I would have to say just to be safe, yeah, there probably is somewhere out there. There's some underlying factor that it drives any potential wire way, I'm not really sure what that would be. Maybe just super, super poor access or the topography was just not suited for anything at all. I'm sure it's out there.

I can't think of one off the top of my head that no matter how I marketed it, priced it, whatever the case may be, couldn't get it moved. I'm not sure that's ever happened, to be honest, but to be safe, I'd say, yeah, there probably is something out there like that. I may not have encountered it yet.

Seth: On that, with the access issue, if I brought you a landlocked property that it was impossible to get to, there's no way, would you say no thanks to that kind of listing because it's just difficult to get the thing to sell? Or would you be like, “Well, but you could probably sell it for a really low price?” How would you treat something like that with a difficult property that is going to be a challenge to get that thing to move?

Adam: Well, two things come to mind when you say that. First off, I would not turn it down. I think there are opportunities for every property. For a landlocked piece of property, there are two things I would think about right on the date before I decided to move forward. Is my client realistic on price compared to that factor, landlocked property? And two, can I get the property listed for a long enough period of time to allow me to work through all of the things that we need to be worked through to get sold? So no, I would not turn that down.

The two things that come to mind after getting it listed. First one is I would pursue, is there a neighbor that wants this property? And secondly, is the topography or the distance to the nearest traversal roadway or trail system, whatever it might be, is there a feasible path to gain an easement if you're a neighboring property owner?

I've dealt with ingress and egress easements many, many times. And a lot of times it's feasible to obtain one after the fact. Usually, for so small monetary fee, those roads that would be impacted by said easement will usually have some restriction on where that easement travels and how wide it might be. But many times, you can get them obtained.

In the state of Missouri, you cannot have a landlocked piece of property. If you were to take something like that to court, the court's going to rule and grant access to the most practical and probable pass-in, if you will. In Missouri, at least, you can't ever result in a landmark piece of property. One of your followers invested in one, there is a way to obtain it. It may be time-consuming, a little bumpy, but you can gain legal access in Missouri. Those are the things I think about when you described that example.

Seth: So, if somebody did come to you with a property that was just clearly problematic and they were not realistic on the price, at that point, would you say no? I'm just trying to find where the limit is for you in terms of, like, “Sorry, this is more trouble than it's worth.”

Adam: If they are just hardnosed and you can tell from the initial conversations, personalities are going to clash, they're never going to come to their senses, they're unreal. Well, very unrealistic, right of the gate, yeah, I would probably turn it down. But I feel like there's any potential for me to breach that point with them or make my point in terms of what it needs to be priced at, I'll take that risk. I'm going to take that out in most cases.

But again, it's just something I gauge at the beginning. Like I said, there might be one or two opportunities that have been put in front of me that I've turned down, but that's the kind of things I'm thinking about. I'm trying to understand what the personality is like, what their mental state is, are they ever really going to make progress if we're getting into this relationship together in terms of pricing and just working with each other. I think it seems like it's a failure right out of the gate. And yeah, I'd probably turn it down.

Seth: When you think about what it takes to put together a good listing with all the right information and pictures and price and headline in some cases, what do you think is the most important aspect of a listing that really grabs the attention or makes things happen? Is it the pictures? If you could only have one thing to be perfect, would it be that, or maybe the description, or just the right number? Anything come to mind?

Adam: The main photo. Think about this. Since you're on Lands of America or any other site, you're looking for properties to just take a look at, investigate where do you see yourself stopping? You stop at that photo that is just gorgeous. Something about the photo just catches your attention and you stop and you click on it.

When I think about it, I just have this example with one of your followers, I think, that recommended me to. We just moved a property in a certain county here in Missouri that was well outside of our traditional area that we've worked together in. A place that I've not done a whole lot of business, to be honest—I've told him that upfront—nor has he. But he had an opportunity to secure a property. He got it secured and we had another contract within a day. And I attributed it to the quality of the main photo that I used in the listing on all the platforms it was on.

It was a fairly small acreage, I think it was 11 acres, but it had river frontage on two sides. River views on two sides. I'm actually a licensed commercial drone pilot. I had the license to operate drone commercials. So, I do all of my area and drone photography. And the photo that we used was a beautiful, beautiful view at probably 350-foot elevation, with the sunrise waning down on the property. So you could see the whole thing, you could see the river. And it was just a really neat photo. I think that the main photo, the photo that's used to present the property initially, is one of the most important things to add right.

Seth: The drone thing. It's crazy when I got into this, drones, I don't think they even existed in terms of just consumers could buy them as they've become more and more easily available. Obviously, it makes sense that they've become more and more common.

Do you take any pictures from the ground, or are 100% of your images from that drone?

Adam: No, it doesn't matter the size of the property, the price of the property. Every single one of them is going to have drone photos, aerial maps from my mapping system and boots-on-the-ground photos as I described them. Many times I will also, when I'm out in the field, boots on the ground, try to flag property cords or at least approximate property cords to give buyers an understanding of where these boundaries are likely to be if there's not a current survey in current survey documentation to truly depict where those things are at.

Sometimes buyers pursue certain properties, and in the end, they just have no idea. They have no reference as to what direction they're looking, or distance, and so on and so forth. So I try to, when I'm out taking my boots on the ground photos, identify all the corners and if there's a dividing line around even long timber or through a pasture or through the shield to try to flag that with as approximate boundary. It's not a survey level of information by any means, but it gives buyers peace of mind and a reference point.

Seth: If I'm understanding this right, just back to those images, are you the person taking your own photos, or do you hire somebody to go do these for you?

Adam: For all my listings, I do them myself. I actually had an interest in photography long before I got into real estate, so it's just carried over well for me. And I obtained my pilot's license to operate because that was commercial early on. And everything just developed from there. I've continued to develop my skillset in flying drones and capturing good pictures and knowing what to look for. So, I feel pretty confident in myself where I stand today.

Seth: What kind of drone do you have?

Adam: I actually just upgraded. I historically operated the DJI drone. I just graduated from a Phantom 4 Pro Plus Obsidian (I think it was the full name of it) to a DJI Mini 3, one that is much more convenient than the size of the DJI Phantom. So I've got all my photography tools in one work bag. It's pretty nice.

Seth: How big is that thing?

Adam: Well, if you give a second. I'm looking at it on the floor here in my office. It fits in the palm of my hand. I'd be happy to show it to you.

Seth: Yeah. Let's take a look at it. To all the listeners who are listening to this audio only, I guess you'll have to go check out the YouTube video if you want to see this.

Adam: I'm back. Here's in my bag. This is my candid revel bag. Everything shut right here. Here's my boots on the ground. Wide-angle landings is a trick that I picked up over the years.

Seth: What range is that lens, out of curiosity?

Adam: This is an 18-millimeter.

Seth: Is that like a Cannon 70D or 90D or something?

Adam: Yeah, I think so. 70D probably.

Seth: Okay. So, he's got a crop sensor lens Canon with a 10 to 18 widening angle lens. I used to have that lens. That's a wonderful lens to have.

Adam: And then there's my girl.

Seth: Wow. That literally fits in the palm of your hand. Is that like the size of a phone basically, the surface area? That's pretty cool. Man, that's crazy.

Adam: Now, of course, this is folded up, but you can see some of it… It might be traveling or very UTV. It's pretty nice to have a drone with this compact. Well, it takes the highest level of quality photos and video. Its innate features that when put together make good marketing videos and content. I found great. Now I haven't used it. It's been a lot of fun.

Seth: Yeah. A lot of land investors I know will hire drone photographers from droners.io or something like that, and I think that can totally work. But ultimately, it's out of your hands in terms of what that photographer is going to do and how good they are at it and if they even find the right property and all this stuff.

Do you have any tricks of the trade in terms of ensuring that you get the best image? Did you make sure you do it as there's a sunrise, a sunset, or a certain angle? Even if you're trying to give directions to another drone photographer, what would you tell them to make sure that they get the best shot?

Adam: We do have multiple different topography resources for all things photography, whether it's drone or marketing videos or house photos, whatever that may be throughout our territory. I had hired out photography on a couple of occasions. In most cases, that's been for virtual tours in internal photos for a residential property.

When I do that, I only hire the best of the best. There's no direction that's needed. It's, “Hey, here's the address, here's your appointment time. Send me the deliverable when you're done.” And it's the best stuff that you can get. Now, if I were to hire out my boots-on-the-ground photography and my drone photography, well, I would try to find a reputable individual that knows what they're looking at, knows what they're looking for, can identify the property with relatively easy instruction.

Maybe they have access to the same mapping system that I would to understand where boundaries are at. Maybe there are some level of outdoor terrain or recreational where they know would fall into policy and look for wildlife sign and capture things that are important to a certain buyer.

I think that's one of the reasons I feel much more comfortable doing my own photography. I get a really good feel for the property and an understanding of what it has to offer. That way, I can speak to it when I'm talking to potential buyers.

I'm an outdoorsman, I'm a buyer's real estate myself, so I know what to look for, I know what I'm interested in, and I try to capture that. In all live photography, one thing I always try to target is water features, if it has it. If properties have water features, I’m including that and much of that in my photography as well as wildlife signs for recreational outdoors and fishery. Those are the things that I target when I'm out walking properties. Where is the game trail? Where is the easiest access to water?

As far as your timing of pictures, most will tell you that early morning or evenings, just before sunset or shortly after sunrise is the best time to get good photos due to the light and the shadows that it casts. In some cases, there is a time where it's too early and there is a time where it's too late, but there's a sweet spot depending on the overcast.

In the example I spoke about a while ago at a river property. I want to say I got there just after 8:00 A.M. and started taking photos around 8:30, 09:00 o'clock, that window right in there and they turned out phenomenal. The lighting was just perfect.

Seth: Yeah. I know in photography, there's something some people call it the “golden hour” or the “magic hour.” Basically, it happens twice a day for about an hour, either sunrise or sunset when the lighting is just like optimal for what you just said, Adam, in terms of the shadows and the lighting. And there's a bunch of free mobile apps you can download that will just tell you wherever you are in the world, whatever time of day that is just so if you're ever curious when you start shooting outdoors, there you go. And if it's overcast skies, I guess it doesn't make a difference because there's no sunlight anyway.

But one other thing I was actually going to mention on that whole thing of overcast skies or if the lighting just isn't good, and this is very common in Michigan where I am about half the year, the lighting is not good because it's just gray skies.

There's a website called BoxBrownie.com that I've used a handful of times. You can basically take these property photos and they will do all kinds of stuff to make them look way better. And you got to be careful about this because you can't go too far. You don't want to alter what the property is.

But I shot a video about this, I can link to it in the show notes a few years ago where I had this property in Colorado where when the person went out to take pictures with their cell phone camera, the composition was fine, they got everything in the shot, but the environment was about as bad as you could get. The sky looked terrible, it couldn't really see much of the features on the ground.

But with BoxBrownie, they basically can Photoshop the sky so it looks like a sunset and they can change the exposure of the land. If it's too dark or too light, it'll make the exposure right. I actually had to have them throttle back the changes a little bit because these are desert properties and they were putting green grass on it. I'm like, no, don't do that. That's not what this is. Keep the ground the same. But to the extent that you can, you can take an ugly picture and make it look way better through this kind of thing.

So that might be another thing, whether you're taking the pictures yourself or you hire it out and they just don't come back that good, BoxBrownie can kind of help out a lot in that regard.

Adam: Good to know. Thank you. I have had some of my photos in the past edited in situations like that. Just the logistics didn't work out and the only time to get the photos captured was on an overcast day or whatever vacation pressure on time whatever it might've been. And I forwarded the content that I was able to capture with my efforts to our photography resources for editing purposes. So, that was a very good point. That's a good resource.

Seth: Yeah. For sure. Let's say, I'm trying to find a land broker like you, Adam, but it's in a place where you don't work. In Michigan, for example. I didn't hear you say you guys have any agents in Michigan or Washington or Maine or something like that. How do I find this person who clearly has your level of experience and knowledge and network? Because I know one way to go about this is just to look on Zillow and find some recent land transactions, dig into some of those agents, and see, “Hey, have you sold a lot of land like my land? Well, maybe I should call you.”

And that's one way to start. But I feel like you're kind of on a different level where it's not that you just have a land transaction in your history, it's like that's what you do. This is your specialty. Is there a way to find people, and not just find their website, but get them on the phone and really know that you're dealing with a pro? What questions should you be asking? Would there be any red flags to be like, “Uh-oh, maybe I shouldn't be dealing with this person?” Do you have any thoughts on that?

Adam: The first thing that comes to mind is Realtors Land Institute, RLI. Realtors Land Institute is an organization that facilitates a credential that most land brokers recognize as well. It’s the best of the best. It's referred to as the ALC, Accredited Land Consultant. So, if you can identify a land broker near your market that has the ALC credential, you're dealing with the best of the best of the best. And I can promise you that. And that is through the Realtors Land Institute.

They are considered the best resource for all things land from 1031 exchanges to understanding pricing strategy, marketing strategy, anything related to land transactions. They are kind of the governing body or the place that most of us look to for guidance and recommendations on how to build our brand, build our business.

Seth: For somebody to be listed as a land consultant with them, what do they have to do? How are you so confident that they're going to be good?

Adam: To obtain the ALC, you are required to go through a multi-year, very stringent education program. And even if you've completed the education, you have to have a certain level of experience that has to be netted and verified by RLI before they will even allow you to sit for the final exam and apply for the ALC credential.

If you were to go to Realtors Land Institute's website, I believe, they have a tab at the top that speaks to this credential and explains what it means to obtain it and how you have to obtain it. So, if any of your listeners are interested at the end of the day in what quality you are dealing with, if you find yourself an ALC and you can even search for an ALC in your territory via their website, it will explain that much further. But it's a very stringent long process to even obtain that credential to put behind your name in their marketing efforts.

Seth: All right. Cool. That's great to know. Yeah. When I interviewed Pat Porter in episode 153, he also mentioned that. I've heard that mentioned a lot. So I'll be sure to link to that website in the show notes in case anybody's listening and you want to check it out. It's a great resource to know about.

As a land broker, I'm sure you've seen a lot of deals at this point. What are some common mistakes that you see land investors making in their acquisition process? When somebody buys a vacant lot that they shouldn't have bought, maybe they overlooked some piece of due diligence, maybe they overestimated what the thing was worth and now they're coming to you trying to get it sold and they're trying to get you to pay for their sins, that kind of thing. What would be some common mistakes you see them making? If you had been involved, you would've advised them, “Oh yeah, watch out for this, or don't make this mistake.” Anything come to mind?

Adam: Yeah. Two things. Two seems to be the number that keeps clicking in my head, but topography and the size of the lot.

If we're talking residential lots, topography is everything. And if it's a rural residential lot, many times the topography can make or break a deal on whether or not that lot is truly developed, if you can truly develop it or not.

In most cases, we're talking single-family residential homes, 1,200 square feet, 2,500 square feet, something like that. And many times, as the topography, just excuse my language, is poor and you can't do anything with it, it's not worth what she thought it was worth as a residential lot.

Topography is one, size is the next thing. Sometimes counties or the governing body in certain areas may change after certain lots were established in a plot of the subdivision, so on and so forth. This is rare, but it can happen. I have seen it happen when lots were determined that an acreage that is too small to suit the restrictions around sewage systems.

For example, the county I'm in right now, which is Jefferson County, Missouri, they have, I think, it's a three-acre limitation. You can have adequate space to put a residence as well as a water well and septic system where you have to have room for the septic tank and the laterals and so on and so forth. And depending on when the lot was established, they will grandfather it and allow a septic system to be installed on it as long as there's suitable space for it to occur. But I should say, a newly established lot that doesn't meet that threshold, you can't develop it and you can't put a septic system on it if there's not public utilities available along the road front or nearby.

So, topography and the size of the lot are important. I think one of the first properties I worked with was one of those, it was that scenario. It was too small. It was so small. It was perfectly low, but it was too small. We couldn't get sold to another buyer for development purposes. We ended up selling it to the neighbor at a lesser price than what we had hoped for because of that fact. So topography and size are important when we're talking about residential lots.

Seth: It makes me wonder at what point do you recommend paying for a boundary survey versus just looking at the GIS map and saying, “Yep, that's fine, we'll just assume that's correct?”

Adam: I encourage it as often as it is justified. Even if there was all done in the recent past. If it was done a year or two ago, don't pay for it and then just do your due diligence. Make sure you look at it from an aerial perspective, make sure there's no potential encroachments from the neighbors. There's not a big discrepancy in what the county records show the acreage is to what your GIS tool that you're using might show the acreages.

If there is not a recent survey and or there's a large discrepancy in what the acreage is or the county assessor's office, NGIS tool, or tax record, or you know there is potential encroachment of some kind, then get it surveyed. It is in your best interests to get it surveyed and insured as policy. And if you purchase it that way, if something happens after the fact, you're protected.

Seth: That's always the trick. I was using Google Earth not long ago because I've got a property where we're trying to move a power pole and we're trying to figure out where do we move it and how far can it go because the local power company, the poles can be up to 120 feet apart from each other, not further than that.

I was trying to use Google Earth's little measuring tool to measure by feet based on where the current one was and where it could go. And I came up with what I thought was less than 120 feet and I pointed it out to my engineer and they're like, “Nope, that's completely wrong. That's 30 feet off. Google Earth is not always correct.” I was like, “Really? Wow. I don't realize it was that far off.” I knew it wasn't perfect, but I didn't realize that big of a discrepancy could be there. And even when you mentioned earlier, sometimes we'll go to a property and mark out approximately where the boundaries are.

Has that ever come back to bite you at all or bite anybody in terms of like, “Oh, we thought it was over here and that this tree was part of our property, but it's actually not and that was a really important tree for us?”

I don't know, just thinking of some example. But does it ever become an issue where it's like, “Wow, I really wish we would've gotten this surveyed?”

Adam: With my clients from the past, nothing specific jumps out at me, but I have heard some similar stories of situations like that. It's usually something much more significant than a walnut tree was on our property line that was here prettier, whatever it might have been. It's usually something much more significant. But yeah, that's the whole deal. Most of the time is to prevent things like that from happening because if it happens after the fact, sometimes you’re SOL, unfortunately.

Seth: Is there any common mistake that you see people making in their selling process? Whether it's another land agent or just an investor trying to sell for sale by owner. Maybe just a common sense thing that they might miss, like, “Yeah, you should list it on this website too and that will make all the difference?” Or you got to get better pictures or ask for a better price. Or you should be offering seller financing when you're not? Anything come to mind in terms of, “Yeah, this is a no-brainer error that you should be fixing and it'll make your life go a lot better?”

Adam: One thing, and maybe I'm biased because I'm a land broker, but when I look at my competitions listings, at least that's what comes to mind as you say that, is lack of aerial maps. Lack of mapping to understand what's the footprint of the property, how is it intermingled with neighboring properties? How large are the neighboring properties? Who owns the neighboring properties? Where are the floodplains located and in proximity to the property?

There are many, many different things the quality of a mapping tool can provide you as a buyer and a seller. My competition, he put out a listing with phenomenal photos. They had top-notch photos, the narrative was wonderful, the pricing strategy is great, but they lacked any type of aerial imagery from a mapping perspective. It's so easy to do. If you have access to the right pool, include that. That's what I would say, it's a lack of mapping.

Even if it's a small property, it doesn't have to be some monstrous 500-acre recreational property. There are things that you can learn pretty quickly by looking at information from an aerial perspective, even if it's not directly related to this 500-acre building line. What is grounded, what is nearby that you can learn to include in your narratives? And you can investigate and do your due diligence before selling on price point, so on and so forth.

Seth: Yeah. On this whole mapping subject, it makes me think of different software or websites out there that can assist with mapping, whether it's Google Earth or MapRight, or something like that. Do you have any software in general that you live and die by? Like you have to have this, or your life is going to be a lot harder. Is there any resource, whether it's paid or free that comes to mind?

Adam: MapRight. Hands down, MapRight. I mentioned before I've been outdoorsing my whole life, so I always feel messed with other smartphone apps like onX and Outstand and different things like that that outdoorsing can use to their benefit and to know where they're at on properties and state locations and trails and game trails and things of that nature.

But we had once used or previously used, at my firm, a different mapping tool called AgriData, and we switched to MapRight a couple of years ago. And the way I describe it to new agents or to someone that's not familiar with MapRight, I like to think of it as onX or HuntStand and AgriData combined and on steroids. There is so much information available to you on MapRight. It's pretty amazing. It really is.

Not just features and tools and things you can do to better market a property and understand what it has to offer, but I mentioned a floodplain, knowing how a property might be impacted by a floodplain. Knowing what the school district is. There's a layer you can toggle on and off to understand what school district a property is. I saw that that's going to be a young family with children, they want to know what school districts it's in. So you can confirm that just by a click of a button via MapRight, along with many, many other things. From the land brokers' perspective MapRight, as of right now, that always changes with competition, it's the best of the best, and I can't live without it.

Seth: It's a great example of how people will gladly pay for organized information. A lot of the stuff you can see in MapRight you can get for free in other places, but it's a pain to get it, or maybe you don't know where to get it, but MapRight just condenses it all into one spot. You don't have to go searching all over the internet to find these simple answers. You listed off a handful of things that MapRight can do that you find useful.

Is there anything else, if you had to say this is the most important thing, is it like getting directions to a property or creating these parcel maps? Anything come to mind? If you use MapRight a lot for this specific purpose, what would that be?

Adam: The one thing I really, really like about MapRight that I've been doing more and more frequently, pretty well set on as a standard is its ability to embed the interactive mapping experience into the listing no matter where it's shown. For example, we have the ability to integrate straight into the MapRight platform via our website.

If you go to see my listings on premierfarmrealtygroup.com, there will be a map tab that you can click on and view the property, as if you were in my MapRight account and toggle on and off all of those various layers. I like that feature, that MapRight offers is the ability to share the interactive mapping experience with a third party from public view without any special account access. You can see everything that I see on a particular property.

The other thing I really like, which you'll see on most of my listings, is the panoramic view feature where you can drop a panoramic view waypoint. For example, I think I do this on most of my properties, but that river property that we were talking about and that main photo that I mentioned, I used as my main photo. Well, at that same perspective from the drone, I captured that 360-degree panoramic image. And I stitched that 360-degree panoramic image into my MapRight project via a waypoint in that georeferenced position above the property.

So you, as a potential buyer of that property, can view that listing of mine, whether it's on the Land.com network or my website. Click on that waypoint I placed on the mapping system, and you can be inside the drone essentially. And spin 360 degrees and zoom in and look down at the river or the water's edge to just literally get a feel for what it is and where it's at as if you were there in person.

Those are the two things I absolutely love about MapRight, is the ability to share the interactive experience via just a simple URL and then the 360-degree panoramic solo feature.

Seth: Yeah. I'm on one of your listings right now. Pulaski County, 11.2 acres, I think. And I'm seeing exactly what you're talking about. I see the images stitched down there, I can see the topographic lines showing. Yeah, that's pretty sweet, man. I like that. That's very, very useful, especially for what you do.

Adam: Yeah, I love it. And that particular client of mine likes it as well.

Seth: I want to talk a little bit about just the profession of being a land broker like you are. For someone out there who might be thinking, maybe I want to do this, maybe I want to list and sell land on behalf of other people. I know we talked a little bit about how you have to get licensed first and then work under another broker for usually a number of years or do a number of transactions.

In terms of picking a market, where you want to do this, when I was talking with Pat Porter earlier in a different conversation, he was explaining to me how usually you want to live within a couple of hours of all of the property that you sell. The place you actually sleep should be relatively close to those properties so you can get to them and service them on a daily basis. Would you agree with that in terms of you kind of need to live where you're working?

Adam: Absolutely. Hands down, I agree. Some of my competition with other brokers, they may be outdoors and they may understand the dirt, the trees, the animals just like I do, but they live in a metropolitan area, and most of the transactions that they have are a couple of hours away sometimes from where they reside. And I can only imagine how tough that might be from a cost perspective to a time management perspective that can be very challenging.

The other side to it that I see a benefit of being that I live in a little area on a piece of real estate, just like I'm selling to my clients, is I understand the lifestyle. I know the other nuances of living in a rural area and that someone who lives in the subdivision that doesn't take their boots off a county area may not know.

So if you want to become a land broker, I would absolutely encourage considering being centralized in your own market that you serve. And if you're not, one that is familiar with the lifestyle that comes with selling land, maybe looking into educating yourself on what those things are that comes with living the rural way. I've got buyers that want to buy rural property that have lived in the metropolitan area all their lives and they didn't know what a septic system was. They weren't familiar. They thought every single place had some kind of HOA sheet or something. Sometimes that stuff doesn't exist, or things like satellite internet. You don't always have the ability to tap into a hard-line fiber that gives you 200 megabytes a second. You're at the mercy of a satellite connection. So if you want to get in the land game, those are some things that I would consider for sure.

Seth: In terms of figuring out what a good market is to do this. Say if I'm 19 years old, straight outta high school, I want to get into this game, I can move anywhere. I can pick any place to do this. Do I just pick any random rural place in the U.S., or are there certain metrics I'm looking for? I want to see X number of vacant land transactions in this county before I know it's a good place. I don't know, anything comes to mind about “Yeah, move to this type of area because of this. That's going to serve you well in terms of a good market for rural vacant land?”

Adam: Something that comes to mind would be maybe focusing on obviously what's most desirable. Everyone always pursues properties that can produce a passive income of some kind. And what I think about is agricultural properties, tillable property. Properties that you can put in a notation of cash to the enabling farmer that's going to lease it for the next 20 or 30 years from an investment perspective.

There are all those opportunities there, along with the recreational side of things. So most land brokers, at least from my perspective, I think hone in on those two things, the recreational interests, and the agricultural investment interests. So if I were an 18-year-old that knows where I know now, and I could pick up shops wherever I would, I'd obviously see what kind of competition I'm dealing with from other brokers and focus on a part of the world that had properties of that type that were most prevalent.

I don't want to go plant my roots in the middle of the desert and think that I'm going to make a living selling 40 acres of sand over and over again. I want this lumber where it's got property types that are highly sought after.

Seth: On that competition issue. I don't know about you, you can probably agree with me, but something I've found in my life is that competition is actually pretty easy to beat if you just show up and try and respond to people and work hard because so many people won't do the easiest things like calling you back or responding to your email or just putting their effort into it and really caring about the job.

When you think about competition, say if you did enter a market that was already really competitive with other land brokers doing stuff. What kind of things could you do to really stand out from them really easily? Is it just making better property listings or being more responsive? What do you think gives a broker that edge that makes them better than the rest?

Adam: Yeah, that's a very good point. In terms of competition, just in general, I feel that there are more and more land brokers out there that I'm competing against in the past five years than the previous five years. I'm sure that's just attributed to the way the market's been. Will that change going forward? Who knows?

But as far as the things that I try to hold on to beat my competition, and me and another broker here in my office, we say this to each other frequently, well, maybe it's a common thing, I don't know. But if we have an opportunity to get in front of someone, we are going to win every single time. And we attribute that just to our communication skills, being empathetic, having emotional intelligence, understanding the industry or the market and who we are and what we do, and just being real with people.

I feel like Realtors get a bad name just like used car salesmen get bad names for every reason. I think you know why, and I can't stand that. Yes, there are some bad apples out there. Yes, there are some people that are lazy and they take advantage of you and be unethical and that's part of the reason why we feel we can win every time if we just get the opportunity to talk with somebody and show them we're not smoking mirrors. We’re the real deal. We are a buyer of real estate just like you. We know what to look for, how to give you guidance, and how we would want to be treated if we were in your shoes.

I think you kind of had to nail the head right from the get-go is just picking up the phone and talking to people, just being willing to work and work hard for a variety of reasons, being passionate about what you're doing, and serving people like you're going to be served.

Seth: And just to clarify earlier, when you said if you can get in front of somebody, do you mean literally physically face-to-face, or are you talking about on the phone call? Or what does that mean?

Adam: Just in general. Just on the phone would be satisfactory. If I could get in person with them across from the kitchen table, want a neutral kitchen for a cup of coffee, whatever it might be, show people who I am, give myself the opportunity to speak with them beyond just an email or a text exchange, I think I'm going to win.

Seth: I had actually read an interesting article, this is about a year or so ago now. The Microsoft CEO was talking about how empathy is the number one most important thing to a successful business person. Something to that effect; don't quote me on it. But empathy is not something that immediately comes to mind for most people, but when you think about it, it makes a ton of sense.

Just being able to identify with somebody and feel their pain and understand their struggles and what keeps them up at night and just showing that you get somebody can go a long way. I think that gets lost a lot of times. People are looking at more like numbers and figures and other kinds of results, but empathy, it's kind of like that secret sauce a lot of times, I think.

Adam: I would agree. I hang my hat on that myself. I feel like I'm a very down-to-earth, very reasonable individual. I have the ability just to connect with people. Maybe that's an oddity. I don't know. But that's something that I try to take with me everywhere I go even outside of real estate. But I know if I could bring that to the table and find a way to connect with someone and understand their pain points and have a solution to it, why wouldn't you want to work with me? At least that's my goal.

Seth: Yeah. Absolutely. I'm curious, how lucrative of a profession can this be for a land broker? I know we talked earlier about how some people do this part-time, some people do it full-time. It probably has a lot to do with how hard a person pushes it and what markets they're in, what kinds of listings they get, all this stuff. When you just look at the people that you know and that you work with, is this like a six-figure income if a person wants it to be? Is it beyond that? I’m just trying to figure out how much money can be made in this kind of business.

Adam: Absolutely. If you're an individual with a reputable firm that has appropriate resources and support, there's no reason a newly licensed agent couldn't be making six figures within two or three years. There are other factors obviously that would impact that.

For example, there was one agent in north central, northeast Missouri that comes to mind that's just a competitor of mine. They make a great firm, they do a very good job across the country. And he and I sell the same number of units, if you will, every year. Whatever those units might be. But his earnings far exceed mine because of the size of the units that he sells and the price point those units bring.

Do I have the same skillset? Yes. Do I have the same tools and resources? Yes. It's just I'm not in that part of the world. So, I'm not going to have the opportunity to generate as much for myself and my family as he might be able to with all other things considered the same.

That individual makes well over half a million dollars a year. I think there is an opportunity, probably more so on the commercial and residential market side of things, to make beyond six figures. Now, that's probably a 10-plus-year endeavor before you make it to that point. But from a land broker perspective, six figures is very achievable and consistently within a very short period of time. You can if you're willing to work hard. This is one of those jobs where you get out of it what you're willing to put into it. Very much so.

Seth: Why specialize in land instead of houses or commercial buildings or something like that? Why would a person go down this track? When you look at the people that you work with, what was it about this niche of real estate that turned them onto this? Any words of encouragement or warning you would give to somebody who is thinking about this?

Adam: I guess the first part of the questioning why get into it? I think real estate in general, whether you're in it from an investment perspective or in it as a broker of some degree, it's very new grids, it's financial new grids. There's just a lot of opportunity all the time.

As far as why get into the land side of things as opposed to the residential commercial side, for me, as I mentioned a couple of times now, I've had a passion for the outdoors all my life. Who wouldn't want to go make a living doing something you're passionate about?

If I can be outside 24/7, I'm going to be outside doing something, whether it's hunting, fishing, just hiking, whatever it might be. I cannot wait for my next showing every time to load up my UTV, meet someone that has similar interests as mine on a piece of property in the middle of nowhere, amongst nature and everything else that has to offer. Drive around on that UTV and just look at stuff. With the opportunity to make six figures doing that, it's a no-brainer to me. As long as you have the skillset or the resources needed to be successful, go get it. It's there to be got. There's a lot of opportunity with it.

Seth: What are your favorite and least favorite things about what you're doing right now? Surely there must be something that you don't like about it. I'm just curious, what would that be?

Adam: The least favorite thing I would say is probably all the paperwork that comes with the job. And there are ways to get around that. There are a lot of contractual obligations that you have to take into account when you begin serving a client beyond just a listing agreement or sale contract. There are addendums and contingencies and timing that is very important to protect our interest and secure the property the right way. And a lot of paperwork that comes with that.

You got to be really, really organized. You have to obviously understand what you're doing, know what forms to bring in and to implement that at which time, know where to find them or reference them when we need them. So just that side of the business, which it's just part of it. But that's probably my least favorite.

I mentioned there are ways to combat that. We have at our firm internally, what's referred to as a transaction coordinator, and this is a service that a third party can provide, a brokerage. They're usually licensed, very knowledgeable individuals that know all of those things, which forms to use, how to execute them appropriately when they need to be executed. And you can pass off that burden firstly, of course, to someone what's called a transaction coordinator that can kind of offset that. So, that's probably my least favorite thing about this.

Seth: Somebody like yourself, I have to assume if somebody is a land investor or if they do have an interest in buying their own vacant land as well as being a broker, you probably come across plenty of opportunities, right? It's almost like you would have a first shot at a lot of deals that nobody else would even know about.

Is that accurate? Do you have a lot of cool opportunities to acquire properties that you otherwise would never even know about because you're in this business?

Adam: Absolutely. And that's one of the primary reasons to have a Realtor on your side. You may not find your next opportunity scouring Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace or cold calling people or sending mail or whatever that might be. That works so many times. If you have a Realtor in your back pocket that you've established a relationship with, usually you are the first one to learn about many of these opportunities.

And we call it pocket listings, and you may have heard that term before, where we know about a property that can be bought before it ever makes it to the open market. And if a Realtor can align a buyer and a seller before that time comes, many times you can save yourself a lot of heartache and time in buying new properties and in flipping properties as well. It goes both ways.

I've got a long list of buyers that are looking for everything under the sun. Once he's got a new opportunity ready to take it to market, I may have a buyer that's willing to pay you whatever you're willing to ask before we ever have to get to that point of getting pictures and putting out signs and taking this deal to the open market and dealing with phone calls and all these back and forth cases with offers and things like that and contingencies. We can get it done a lot of times before it ever comes to that.

Seth: I was actually having breakfast with a guy this morning who's interested in getting into the land business, but more looking for passive income opportunities, whatever there is in that realm. He's kind of telling me what he's looking for and I was thinking of somebody like you. Would it be possible for me to come to you and say, “Adam, I've got this amount of money, I'm looking for an investment that has this kind of yield, I'm looking for this amount of financing?” Just give you all the criteria of the specifics of what I want and just tell you that. And then you can say, “That's unrealistic because of this, or okay, cool, I'll go find you something.” Is that something that you deal with often, or somebody just sort of gives you their order and then you find it and serve it up to them?

Adam: Absolutely. That's exactly how I serve all of my clients. Upon the first conversation, I have essentially a list of questions I'm going to ask. I want to know everything I can about what they're looking for. And right out of the gate, like you mentioned, if there's something that doesn't quite align to me, either their budget to the size of the acreage they're wanting, or the part of the world that they're wanting this acreage isn't realistic, I'll tell them that upfront. There is no reason to waste anybody's time and mislead them.

But at that point, I can then start customized searchings on the MLS system within my own network and so on and keeping a feel for opportunities to keep my thumb on those opportunities as they present themselves.

Seth: Anything else I should be asking you about your job or what land investors should be thinking about as they're buying and selling properties? Anything come to mind?

Adam: No. I think we covered quite a bit, headed from all different angles. I don't think there's anything else right now.

Seth: Yeah. Awesome. Well, Adam, I totally appreciate you sitting down and talking with me. It's been awesome to grill you on all this stuff. If people want to find out more about you, reach out to you for any reason, where should they go? What should they do?

Adam: Absolutely. Well, you can find me in a couple of ways. Visit our website, premierfarmrealtygroup.com, or I'm happy to speak with you on my phone at any time. (314) 541-0389. That's my direct cell. I have it with me all the time. And, of course, my email, amikesch@pfrgrp.com. You can also find it on the website.

Seth: Awesome. And for the listeners out there, this is episode 154. If you want to check out the show notes where you'll find links to all the stuff we talked about here, go to retipster.com/154. You can find all that there. Adam, again, thanks for chatting with me. It's been awesome. And hopefully, we can talk again soon.

Adam: Yes, sir. Thanks for having me.

Seth: You bet.

Seth: Hey, everybody. How's it going? This is Seth. You're listening to the REtipster podcast.

Today I have the privilege of interviewing a pretty well-known real estate agent who specializes in vacant land. His name is Pat Porter with RecLand. If you're in the land investing business, you know that finding a real estate agent who truly understands land can be an incredible asset. And it's not always easy to do.

If you call up any old agent and ask them to list your land for you unless it's a truly remarkable property that kind of sells itself, most agents who specialize in houses and other types of properties don't really know a whole lot about how to sell land specifically because it's just a totally different type of property that requires a different set of skills and knowledge and network to sell quickly. This is why it's important for land investors to find an agent who specializes in land. And Pat is one such agent.

He came across my radar because he also has a YouTube channel where he talks about a wide array of topics from this specialty. I'll go ahead and link to that in the show notes along with his website if you want to check that out. Show notes are at retipster.com/153 because this is episode 153.

I've actually been looking for land agents like Pat to interview because, in some respects, guys like Pat are more knowledgeable about land than most land investors I know. Because a good land agent sometimes has to dig into the details of a property, both literally and figuratively, more so than the owner does. Land agents also have a lot of great connections and work with a lot of other land professionals. A guy like Pat can just shed a lot of light on the things we need to know about.

So Pat, welcome to the show. How you doing?

Pat: Thank you, Seth. I'm glad to be here. Appreciate it.

Seth: Yeah, absolutely. So let's start with your background. How long have you been working as a land agent like you do?

Pat: I got my real estate license and started working as a land agent for another broker about 19 years ago, 18, 19 years ago. As soon as enough time elapsed, I was able to take my broker's license and became a land broker. In 2010 I started our own company, RecLand Realty. I'm the owner and broker of it. I've got a lifetime friend who's a business partner. He and I own RecLand together, but I'm the broker. And man, that's all we've been doing for the last 13, 14 years.

Seth: What were you doing before this? What made you decide I want to become a land broker specifically?

Pat: I live in Louisiana now, but we lived in the Carolinas 20 years ago. And I had a real job and I started doing some personal real estate deals on the side. I wasn't an agent, I was just buying and selling houses on my own. I was having to do it kind of on the cheeks. I didn't have any money, so I was having to be real creative in doing deals. And my buddy here in Louisiana wanted to get into the land business. He just wanted to buy and sell his own stuff.

And he and I talked and he said, “Man, why don't you come here and do what you're doing in the Carolinas? Just come here and do it in Louisiana and we'll just do land.” And one thing sort of led to another, and I moved here with my family. We're from here. So, it was an easy move. Started doing our own deals, and one thing led to another and I realized not every deal that comes across my plate was something we wanted to do, but it was something somebody may want to do.

And I’m going, “If I had a real estate license, I could market this as a third party for somebody else. It won't work for us, but it may work for somebody else.” And that's how I got into licensed real estate activity. It was pretty quick. I realized, hey, I need to have my own company. And he and I talked, and that was our goal. As soon as I was two years as a licensed agent in Louisiana, you could then become a broker.

And after those two years went by, we turned the switches on and started our own company. And so, that's the short version of it, but that's been the progression. And now here we are, RecLand is a huge part of what we do, but we still do our own personal deals as well as I run a land brokerage marketing property for other people.

Seth: Yeah. I think I know the answer to this, but I'll just ask this in case anybody listening is wondering this. When I hear the term “agent” and then “broker” used, what is the difference between that? Does a person start as an agent and then once you're a broker, are you managing a group of agents or something? What's the difference there?

Pat: Yeah. I manage 20-odd agents and the way the license law works, a licensed agent has to be under the sponsorship and oversight of a licensed broker. It's just a structured system that creates a massive amount of accountability between a licensee and the public. License law is a pretty sophisticated and serious thing. And the broker is that level of accountability between the public and the agent.

Seth: And how long does that last? When does the agent get to become a broker or do their own thing?

Pat: It's different in every state. In Louisiana, it used to be two years and then they changed it to four. Most states, or many states, I should say, are four years or more to be a licensed agent before you can become a broker. And hey, most agents don't do that because when you become a broker, you're taking on the business side, you're taking on the responsibility side, the financial accountability side. And so, most folks don't want to be a broker and I don't blame them. They'll operate as a licensed agent under a broker. And even licensed brokers can work under another broker, man or woman. The buck stops with them as the sponsoring broker.

Seth: Okay. So, how many markets does RecLand work in?

Pat: We're licensed in eight states. Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas, that's our primary. Missouri, Iowa in the Midwest. And then we're also licensed in Georgia. My company and I, we're set up in Georgia. I just don't have any agents there yet.

Seth: I'm assuming it's you and how many other agents?

Pat: 22, 24. Somewhere in the low to mid-20s. I'd have to write them all down and count them up.

Seth: So these people are kind of speckled throughout these states and they have local expertise in those markets.

Pat: As far as the sheer number, most of it, let's call it 25 are in Louisiana and scattered around the state, but also those of us that are licensed in Louisiana, most of us are also licensed in Arkansas and Mississippi, this kind of region. And then I also have some Texas guys and one of them is also licensed in Louisiana. And so, we got some crossover there, which is helpful. State lines my guy in Texas, he's 90 minutes from a big market in Louisiana. So, it works out for him. And a lot of people are like that in land business, they're licensed in multiple states.

Seth: When a land agent or a broker like you is involved, what kind of commission is paid to you for your involvement in the deal? Is there a standard percentage that always happens? How does that work?

Pat: According to the public, there's always a standard percentage because the residential commercial world sets that out there and makes it appear like it's a set standard, but it's not. The number can be anything. Our typical deals are 5% or 6%. We have some large deals, maybe a large, if we'll get a large package of deals or maybe a large timber track or a farm, we might push that number down a little bit just to make it make sense to the seller.

I've done some large deals that were three and a half, four, four and a half. It's a negotiable number. I got a lot of faults, but being greedy has never been one of them. And I'm a land buyer and seller myself. And so, the commission's got to make sense. Just to charge somebody 6% on a $10 million farm, come on, that's just a huge number. So, I try to make it make sense for the seller because I'm a business person too, and I try to make it reasonable. But most of the time, it's in that 5% to 6% range.

Seth: Okay. And you mentioned that you buy and sell your own land deals. Do you find those opportunities just in the course of your regular work when you're coming across opportunities? Or are you doing some kind of extracurricular marketing to find these people and find deals that way?

Pat: I find them in both ways. Sometimes they just come across our plate as a normal course of business. Somebody has something for sale, that they list it with us and we look at it and go, “Well, that fits what we're wanting to do.” So, one of my investor buddies or somebody like that will just make the deal.

Other times I swerve into properties that I find sort of on my own as I'm working on a listing. Maybe I see an adjacent property that I go, “Well, that's kind of cool, let me look at that.” And I look up who the owner is and may send them a personal letter, that sort of thing.

I have a systematic way of marketing for RecLand getting listings, but I don't have a systematic full-boat way of marketing for personal deals. There's just not enough time in the day and I swerve into enough of those deals sort of on my own anyway.

Seth: Yeah. And just to clarify, when you say RecLand, do you mean recreational land?

Pat: RecLand. Yeah, some people look at it that way. It was just a cool name when I had to name the business 15 years ago. I wanted the word land to be in it, so it'd be distinctive. And I wanted it to be short enough so that the website recland.net shows you how far back I got. I wanted it to fit on one line of a classified in the newspaper. I saw some people that have this huge name for their website, and it would run over into two lines on a classified, which doesn't make good sense.

So I'm going, “Okay, what's a word that kind of captures what we do, but it's short enough to fit on a classified?” And that's where RecLand came from. Most people associate it as recreational land, which is a big part of what we do. So, it fits. Yeah.

Seth: Well, I guess that leads to my next question. So these deals, just out of curiosity, and the deals that you are pursuing for yourself, what kind of deals do you go after? Are you trying to develop farmland, or are you trying to just flip something and make money? What would look attractive to you, and what are you trying to do with it?

Pat: The two main things I look for, found one yesterday, bought one last week, or tracks that are maybe just underpriced, undervalued where I could go, “Well, dang, that's just a straight-up flip the way it sits.” We've done deals like that. We do them routinely. We just buy it for X and sell it for Y.

A deal I did, closed on last week, and a couple others that are closed on a few weeks ago, I look at tracks like that as, okay, buy this track, go do a little something to it. Maybe cut some timber or put in a road or just clean it up just a little bit and divide it. Some of those are divided for rural home sites 10-, 20-acre tracks for homes or some of them are just divided for recreational use. We bought a lot of tracks that several 100, several 1,000 that we can carve up into smaller, more manageable bites and sell it to the recreational buyer out there. Hunting land and places for camping, fishing, that sort of thing. A lot of people can buy 40s and 60s and 80s. Not everybody can buy 800, 8,000. So we buy wholesale, sell retail, or develop something, fix it up, and then just increase its use.

Seth: Okay. And then the types of properties that you list and sell on behalf of other people, what do those typically look like? What is size, value, uses of the property? What's kind of an average, or what would fit inside that box?

Pat: I'd have to crunch a lot of numbers to figure out an average size. But I was looking at a track yesterday of a lady in Colorado who wants us to sell for here in Louisiana. It was 120 acres, that's sort of run-of-the-mill normal kind of deal for us. Timberland. It'll have some home site use for it because of the way it sits on a road and there are utilities. So, we could have some use other than just timberland or recreational land. It could maybe be home site potential.

We sell a lot of timberland. We get a number of farms, improved farms because where we are here in the Delta, farmland is a big deal. So farmland, timberland, hunting land. Over in Texas, we sell some ranches, so it's that. A lot of tracks will be smaller tracks that are 20s, 40s, things like that, that really, that's best use is a rural home site. It may just be growing timber now, but really its best use, which is a higher value in a rural home site. So, we do a whole lot of that.

Seth: I know a lot of land flippers in our community anyway, when they get started, they might go after really, really cheap stuff. Just bottom of the barrel. Like lots that they can buy for $1,000 and sell for $5,000 or something like that. I think about that compared to what you just told me about the sizes and values and uses and that kind of thing. What would cause you to say no thanks to a landowner who wants to sell their land through you? Is there a point at which it's like, nope, that's too small, or no, that's never going to sell? What would make you be like, “Nope, sorry, do it on your own?” Or would you ever say that?

Pat: There are four main things that I say no to. Somebody that's just hard to deal with. If they're hard to deal with on the first phone call, they're going to be hard to deal with later. So life's too short. I'm too old. I'm too busy. I used to say yes to everything because I'm a hustler and a go-getter, but I've learned to say no to people that are hard to get along with. I just say, “No, thank you. I'm good, but I'm not that good.”

Seth: It's important to have boundaries, for sure.

Pat: If it's in an area that I don't have an agent somewhere nearby that we can't really service properly, I'll tell them that. I don't want to take something that I really can't service and the customer doesn't necessarily know that. They called me because they maybe trust me and I want to make sure I can service them well.

So, if it's in an area where the closest agent is three hours, we may say no to that and I may help them find somebody closer. Just little small lots. You've run into them in towns and cities all over the country, a three-quarter acre or a two-tenths of an acre lot in a subdivision. It's better for the seller, honestly, if they'll use a local residential company. Pick your poison on those, but that way, that agent can put it on the MLS. It'll sell locally to somebody in town. That's the quickest, easiest way. I usually say no to those little bitty, bitty deals. We sold a lot of them because sometimes it's just part of it, it comes with a package and you got to take the good with the bad. It's my philosophy.

And then the fourth thing I say no to is 131 Elm Street. If it's just a straight-up house on one or two acres or a small subdivision lot, that's better for the residential folks over there to do. That's really not our cup of tea.

So, those are the four things that we'll say no to. We sell properties, we have some listed that have houses on it, but the house is sort of just part of the deal. It's maybe a home on 40 acres or we got one under contract now, home on 17 acres out in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, we'll do those. But we can market that to the land buyers. The house is just sort of there. Does that make sense?

Seth: Yeah, for sure. And what percentage of your clients, and when I say clients, I mean the property owners who are selling their property through you. What percentage of those people are returning customers, so to speak, where maybe that's an investor where they do a lot of volume and they just keep coming back to you again and again versus just one random guy who wants to sell one random thing and then that's it?

Pat: I don't have an exact number. I don't keep metrics of that where I could look up and give you the exact stat on that, but really quite a bit. It makes me happy when we get a return phone call. We had a deal closing this office yesterday. One of my guys, it's the second time he's sold this property. My personal record in the office is six. I sold the same 63 acres six times.

Seth: Wow.

Pat: Recreational hunting land turns over like that sometimes. People's lives change. We'll have investor groups that use us over and over. And so, we get a good bit of repeat business, which I really appreciate it. It lets you know, hey, you're doing something right and people appreciate that.

Seth: How do people find you? Do they just see you're listing and call you that way, or is it through YouTube? What do you think is the biggest driver of new leads for you?

Pat: This changed the world, of course, as you know. And so, everybody is looking here. Even when they're driving down the road, they're looking at this, they're not looking at billboards anymore.

Seth: Pat is holding up a phone just for the listeners out there who can't see it.

Pat: The internet and the apps that run on the internet, that's where all the eyeballs are. And so, I made that switch years ago where I put aside, remember I made the joke about the classified ad. I quit using newspapers, print and radio, and TV. We laid all of that aside years ago and put every penny, every piece of activity of our marketing on the internet, websites, electronic books, the YouTube videos that you've seen, the social media stuff that we do. People swerve into us there.

Exactly how many come from our website and how many come from a Facebook ad and how many come from a YouTube video, I don't have the exact number, but it all comes from that pretty much because I don't do the old traditional dinosaur advertising anymore. We used to do it a lot. We don't do it anymore. We're busier than we've ever been. It's the internet. We're on every major land website there is, plus our own site, all the social platforms, e-blast, text blast. Any way that I can get our name or our properties out on this device in people's hands is what I do.

Seth: Of those different selling platforms out there, selling websites, is there one or two that are responsible for the majority of your sales? If a land investor is listening to this and they're like, “I just want to do the 80/20 and focus on the most powerful selling platform," what is that for you?

Pat: Without a doubt, it's our website, recland.net. But I understand that a personal website for your average investor doesn't work because he doesn't have the economies of scale in place that are driving hundreds and thousands of hits to that site every day, like people are hitting ours. So, personal website is us, but we're an established business. 15 years. People have been going to that website. The numbers are there.

The second place after that would be, there are a handful of well-established land websites out there, the one-off, the onesie, twosie investor can use. If I were that guy, I would use those. I hate to plug them on your show here.

Seth: No, that's fine. I'm just looking for what's working for you.

Pat: Landflip.com, top-tier people. Great website. I think one of the top three or four land websites on the internet. And then you've got the land.com family. So land.com, landflip.com, those are the two that I would start with if I were onesie, twosie or a handful of deals a year investor.

Seth: What is it about landflip.com that you think is so effective? I don't think that's the biggest one out there, is it?

Pat: No, it's not the biggest at all. Like I say, I think it depends on who you ask, and when you ask. I think it's number three, number four. But when you only have a handful of top-tier land websites, it's right there. You got Hertz, Avis, Enterprise. Everybody rents from all of those. Landflip.com is probably number three or number four, again, depending on who you ask and when you ask, it's a stellar website. It's user-friendly, it's got all the bells and whistles and it's run by world-class people.

They're run by great people. Not corporate pointy heads, not VPs in the office, run by real land people who've got the technical expertise to make it all work. And I know I sound like I'm plugging them. I'm not, they're just friends. I don't have a single dog in the hunt. In my opinion, they're the standard even though they're not the number one site out there as far as track.

Seth: No, that's actually really good to hear. I've known about Landflip forever, but for whatever reason, it's not like the site that I hear about the most from where people are selling stuff. But I think the world that I'm operating in, it's a little bit different than yours where mine are specifically land flippers, people who are buying super cheap and selling for more, whereas you're more like the people who are more invested, maybe, with bigger stuff who are doing more things to the property. But I wonder if the market has anything to do with that too. Maybe certain markets, for whatever reason, gravitate more toward certain platforms. I don't know. It's hard to say.

Pat: Maybe so. But again, I've been doing this a long time and I'm reasonably good at what I do, got a little information. Knowing what I know now and if I were starting from nothing and I were just a onesie, twosie land flipper, whether it be three acres or 32 acres or two-acre lot here, there, I would still use these platforms because that's where people look. Their SEO is out there. If you go online and you're doing anything looking for land, these platforms are going to pop up. I would be there whether I had 10,000 acres or 10 acres. That's where I would be if I were onesie, twosie guy. And I don't need mean onesie, twosie in any disparaging way. I'm just trying to make a distinction between the guy that this is all they do and then people, this is just part of what they do.

Seth: Got you. No, I appreciate you mentioning that. So figuring out what land is worth can be a very tricky thing in some cases. I'm curious, how do you do it? I've seen on some of your YouTube videos, you talked specifically about that with regard to timber and surrounding properties and I'm just curious, do you have any software that you rely on, or is it just your knowledge of that market, and previous sales there of similar properties? How do you get confident about the value of a property?

Pat: Yeah. That's unfair to your average guy out there because I'm sitting here with, I don't know, thousands of land deals under my belt and a great office manager in the next room who's got every detail of every deal we've ever done in Excel. So, we've got our own database that, if we're uncertain, we can always kind of look at. We're running hundreds of properties through here a year, we do our own deal.

So there's this mental database that I can go look at your typical property in our region and I'm going to be able to put a range on it really quick just because of what I know. And that's a little bit unfair. Your average guy out there that's trying to put a value on something, he needs to, and this is what I've told people before in videos and stuff and books, is you need to call and ask guys like me. You need to ask questions. Not just call and ask one person. You need to just acquire information and you get that from a lot of sources.

You might be able to get that from your tax assessor, the clerk. And a lot of this is states specific because some states are disclosure states, other states aren't where the purchase price has to be put on a deed. Other states, they don't. States like Arkansas, it doesn't have to be put on a deed, but you can still figure out the purchase price because of the way they tax the transaction. You can figure out exactly what the price was. So, there are people out there that you can ask, and you can put together enough information to get in the ballpark if you're a onesie, twosie, a smaller guy, just trying to figure out something that you want to buy or sell.

There is no magic website. There is no magic solution or silver bullet for it. Houses are different because you've got the MLS and you've got comp, comparative market analysis, but they've also got 15,000 other sales right there in Littletown, USA to be able to pull from. So, that database exists for them. For us, we have to create our own database and we do. We have it here, I've got it here, we've got that database, but we've had to acquire it one deal at a time.

There is no simple way. And if people say there is a simple surefire guarantee, that's the guy you need to run from or quit watching on late-night information television. If it's really not a bulletproof system for that. It can be done, but it takes work, takes digging and work. And that's where most get-rich-quick investors fall out because they wanted the quickness, they didn't want the digging and the work part of it.

Seth: Yeah. And I would agree. It is an unfair advantage for sure, but that's why it's important for people to talk to people like you. Take advantage of your unfair advantage. I know a lot of land investors now who rely heavily on their local land agent or land broker, not only for selling stuff, but also on the acquisition side when they're buying a property, asking their agent like, “Hey, is this good? Is this worth what I think it is? Is there something about the local market that I'm not aware of? Any red flags, any reason I shouldn't buy this even though it looks good to me on paper?”

And a lot of times their agent can step in and be like, “No, don't do that,” or “Yeah, this is worth more than you think it is because of this.” And you can't really get that without somebody like Pat who's been around for a long time and has tons of data to look at. So, I would agree.

Pat: I agree. Yeah. And that is not just Pat by any means. Like I said, I'm pretty good at what I do. Been doing it for a long time. Got a lot of good guys that work for me. And so, we're always picking each other's brains and bouncing information and questions off of each other. We do that nonstop. We probably know the answer, but I'll still pick up the phone and call Mark or Coy or whoever and ask a question about X, Y, Z, and they'll do the same. It just sort of validates what our hunch is. And that's important.

Seth: And I'm wondering, say, if I'm looking at a market like Washington or Idaho or something like that where you don't necessarily have a presence, but I want to find somebody like you. How do I do that? How would you find yourself in another market like this? Is it just looking at local land listings or seeing who has a YouTube channel about land in those states? How would you go about doing that?

Pat: That's a good question. I get asked a lot because the internet doesn't have a boundary and so I've actually gotten calls and emails from people overseas and other countries asking me about a hector of this, that, or the other. And I'm a go-getter kind of guy, but I'm the first to tell you, “Hey, brother, I have no idea, man, no clue. I'm sorry I'm stupid as it relates to that.”

But I get asked a lot about properties all over our country. And a lot of times, I'll know a good company or an agent in an area and I'll give them the context. I've got it on my phone. I do that quite a lot. There are people I know and trust, I don't want a referral.

I just want them to find somebody that they can trust and who will serve them. That takes care of it for me. I don't need money out of that. Wasn't going to make any money at the beginning, why try to ease my way into some little referral at that point? I just want somebody to have a good contact.

If I don't know anybody, and that's frequent too, I always refer them to rliland.com, that's the realtors land institute, rliland.com. And they have the database and it's part of the National Association of Realtors. They have a database of all the agents all over the country and they can look right there in their region and they can get some names and they can at least make a call and start a point of contact and then investigate if that person can help them.

People that are in rliland.com or typically they're in it as a profession, they're professionals. A lot of them have the ALC accreditation, accredited land consultants. That's one of the National Association of Realtors designations. And anybody that's got an ALC designation and they find them in that website, they're not just fly-by-night folks. They've done the work, they've spent the time to earn that and they're probably a good source to at least start with. I've given that piece of information out hundreds of times.

Seth: Yeah, for sure. I've heard of that site and it gets referenced quite a bit in our community too. I am wondering, take a doctor, for example. A doctor who goes through medical school and they just barely graduate with Ds on everything or Cs or whatever the minimum possible grade is, they're still called the doctor and you don't know any better. You know what the grades were, you don't know how smart they are. It doesn't make them good just because they're a doctor.

I'm wondering if you were talking to a new contact who says they're a land agent in some other market, what are you looking for? What questions should you be asking? What answers do you want to hear? What would be some red flags that are like, “Uh-oh, maybe I shouldn't work with this guy?” Any thoughts on that?

Pat: I don't have a list of top five things, but you and I are both grown men and we deal with people all the time. And a lot of times, just in the first few seconds of a conversation you start to, like a buddy of mine says, his phrase for it is, "That guy's got a lot of cheese in him." That's his way of saying, “No, I'm not believing much of what he says.” And he discerns that on his own after a real short conversation.

And if those red flags go up, you might want to be a little leery, but if everything's moving along I would certainly ask him what company they're with. And while I'm on the phone with them, I'm looking at their website. I'm looking at the listings this man or woman has. I'm just starting to see, is there any cattle to go along with the hat, so to speak, when I'm talking to somebody.

And having a conversation with them over just a little short period of time sort of meets that out. You start to realize, hey, this person knows what they're talking about, or no, man, I feel like he's selling me a used car. And if you get that feeling, I'd trust that and hang up and go to the next person.

But if you're getting good information and it's validating some of the things that you think you already know, you're seeing other things that point in the right direction. Hey, this guy's got 22 listings in my state, and seven of them in my county or parish, and, oh, look this property's kind of like… He didn't get those listings by accident. He didn't hustle everybody. You know what I'm saying? So there's probably some substance there. That's just the old country boy way of me going about it. I listen to the red flags, kind of trust my gut and I look for some signs of real activity.

Seth: Got you.

Pat: If a guy, a man or woman, they don't have any listings, you go to the website, you can't even navigate it because they're with a one-stop shop, kind of a one-horse… I've got my metaphors all mixed up. They're with a little cheesy little website with a business that doesn't do anything, then I want to trust my business with them? Maybe not.

Seth: Going back to the value thing that we were talking about just a second ago. It's something that always kind of trips me up or, I guess, just frustrates me because I don't really know what to do with it exactly. It’s how to quantify the value of things like a view or unique attributes of a vacant lot that aren't necessarily monetizable, like timber. Like you can't really put a dollar amount on it but there's still worth something to most people. How do you figure out what that is? A lot of times, there is no comp that is a direct comparable to that. So, how do you think through that?

Pat: You're exactly right. There are these intangibles. These intrinsic things. These little wow factor things. The opposite of wow factor, these ugly irreparable type things that I'll add or take away value. And they have to swag it that silly wild guess kind of deal. But in my business here where we are, we sort of got our business off and running was the biggest part of our business is in Louisiana, east Texas, south Arkansas, western Mississippi and that is a very strong recreational part of the world. Deer hunting, duck hunting, fishing, turkey hunting.

Old land guys long before our businesses got established valued land as dirt and inventory. That's the only two things that mattered. Dirt and inventory. The timber on it. And they put a value on the timber, which you can do. And then there was a dirt value which people could figure out sort of set over time.

Land has always been about X dollars of value and then plus the timber. So, dirt and inventory. Well, guys like me came along and even people before me, and realized, “Hey, in Louisiana, we've got the Mississippi River, we've got the Delta with the best duck hunting in the world in central East Arkansas.” People pay a lot of money to kill a big deer and to kill a lot of ducks and the turkey hunt. Well, you've got a recreational component now that you add to dirt and inventory.

And suddenly, land that people were used to buying and selling at $1,100 and $1,200 an acre is suddenly now $1,900, $2,500, $3,000 an acre because of the recreational component. And that is new to the game. That hadn't always been around. And so, that is the same thing that you're referring to with a view or this or that. Learning just what those extra components, what value they truly add is something that is region-specific.

I don't know anything about the Pacific Northwest but I understand it's beautiful. I don't know anything about Colorado vistas, but I understand they're beautiful. And those guys out there can look at that and put value on that that I can't. So, it is going to be region-specific, property-specific, and men, women professionals in those areas, they're going to be able, from experience, to put some value on that.

Same thing, you also have to educate a buyer-seller, and I have to do this a lot, had to do it yesterday on the 120 acres that not every acre is created equal. I've said that thousands of times. Just because this property is worth this amount in this parish, it's not worth this amount in this parish just because of location.

And if you've got a lot of trees on 12 acres doesn't mean it has any timber value. I don't know a single logging operator that's going to go set up and select cut 12 acres. There's just no money in it, you can't do it. So you got a lot of great beautiful trees, but that's all they are, there's no timber value.

And learning to make those distinctions as a buyer and a seller is really critical. Not every acre's created equal and just because there's a tree doesn't mean it's timber. Just because there's a view doesn't mean somebody else is going to think it's as pretty as you do, that sort of thing. Seth, I said a lot to not answer your question because there are no clear-cut answers for that. There are regional norms, I could say, where people can apply those values and they come from real sales.

Seth: Yeah. You did answer my question in the fact that it's not a clear-cut answer, but in terms of talking to local agents and people who just understand the area, I don't know of any other way either. I just don't know how you would figure that out because you can't just do that looking at spreadsheets and comps, so to speak, whatever that means.

Pat: Now, let me give just an example to tie into that. My office, I'm sitting right now in northeast Louisiana. Well, five, six hours from here in northwest Arkansas, north central Arkansas, some of the most beautiful grounds you've ever seen. High rolling terrain, gorgeous hardwoods, rocky outcroppings. It's beautiful to me. Absolutely gorgeous. People would love it if you could get them there. And I look at some of this stuff, it's priced $800 - $900 an acre and I see it on the internet and I'm going, I'm tempted to buy that side unseen. Look at it, it's gorgeous, my stars, if we have that down here, I can sell it for $4,000 an acre.

Well, it doesn't sell up there for those prices or it's having to be priced that low because it's completely inaccessible. It's completely unbuildable. It's beautiful if you can get to it with a helicopter. And those are the types of things that it's apples and oranges depending on the region that you're in, and depending on its functionality. I look at it and think it's a beautiful thing. It's worth many thousands an acre.

Everybody else up there that lives there goes, “No, man, I wouldn't give you $1,000 an acre for it because I can't get to it. It's hard to rock. I can't take my family, my dog can't even climb the hill.” That kind of thing.

Seth: Yeah, I know it's frustrating because I've used the illustration of the land in my backyard. I've got a pretty heavily densely wooded backyard, but I actually don't own it. It's my neighbor kitty-corner across the way that owns it. And sometimes they talk about, “What if we just cut all these trees down and developed back there?” And I'm like, “No, don't do it." That land is worth a lot to me.”

But I'm the only person in the world that it's worth much to. Maybe them and me and that's it. Nobody else would care about it. There are a lot of properties that they're worth a lot to some people, but that doesn't mean it's worth that much to everybody. It's not an objective value. So, I don't know what I'm saying other than just I understand the frustration. It's hard to really figure that out.

Pat: To your example there, we sell a number of tracks every year that are just gar holes. Gar holes is just an expression I use for. It is just holding the world together. It has no legal access. It's low. You can't do squat with it. It's just holding the earth together and nobody's going to buy that. We will list it. We have to get the seller down to some reasonable number based on what we sold in the past because I know that I can approach the adjacent landowners.

And if the price is reasonable to them, they're going to want to try to buy it because it means something, it has value to them because it joins them just like you're saying. It joins you. That piece joins you. It adds a buffer, maybe between you and somebody else. And so, that gar hole to one person that's absolutely worth nothing to this adjacent landowner, we had a guy recently who paid $1,500 an acre for something that we couldn't get anybody else interested in for $600, $800 an acre because it had no use for them at all. But the adjacent guy bought it for $1,500 an acre. That's about $1,100 an acre more than it's really worth, in my opinion.

Seth: Yeah. It makes me wonder, do you think there's such a thing as unsellable land? Is there a property that's so bad, nobody will ever buy it?

Pat: Yes, but then I always seem to get surprised. Because even that piece I described right there, those adjacent neighbors want it, they all want it. The drawback is a lot of them don't have the money to buy it, which is nobody's fault. That's just the reality. And so, I've sold ditches that run between properties. I've sold ditches, nobody wants that. But an adjacent farmer could use it because he could create additional drainage. The only use for it was for that farmer for that use and he happened to be able to buy it. Other than that, it's unsellable. Yeah, to answer your question, yes, but there are always a lot of exceptions.

Seth: Yeah. No, it sounds about right. When you think about all the land that you list, how long does it typically take for you to sell it? Does your opinion have much weight in terms of figuring out what should this property be listed at? Say if I come to you with a property that is objectively, if that existed objectively, worth $100,000, but I'm like, “Nope, list it for $200,000.” Like would you just say, “Nope, sorry, we're not going to do it?” or would you, I don't know, meet me halfway? I guess I'm kind of asking two questions at the same time here. So, maybe we'll start with the first one. What's a typical timeframe to sell?

Pat: Yeah. I get asked that by everybody that calls or wants to list something. I don't have a quick answer for it because it just depends. It really does. What we do in this business, it takes just a little longer to marinate. That's kind of what I say to people. It's not like selling 131 Elm Street, where houses flying off the shelf, especially like the last 12, 18 months. It's not like that at all. It's got a marinate just a little. Unless it's at a ridiculous steal of a price.

And then I can make a phone call and sell it. So, it can sell in a day. But put it on the market, it takes a little time. Just to give you an answer, if somebody prices the property at what we suggest or write around at what we suggest two, three months is something fair that I tell people. If we're going to really push the high end, it may be in the four to six-month range because most of the stuff we sell is a luxury purchase.

Everybody's got to have a place to live. But not everybody's got to have 200 acres to turkey hunt. It's a luxury purchase. So those go slower. They just do. Not everybody wants to agree with that, but it's just a reality. I tell people quick is a month or two if we price it just rent a fire sale price. Three to six months if it's priced at market. And if you're really shooting for the moon, I don't have an answer.

To answer the second part of your question, about I suggest it's a $100,000 asking price and you say, “No, I want to ask $200,000.” If it's a certain kind of property, I may go, man, I'm good, but I'm not that good. I'm sorry. But that means we've sold 100 of them. If we know it's going to sell in this range, there's nothing magic about it, it's not special.

But there are some properties that are, hey, you may be right. It's got some unique features. It's got that view. It's got some of those intangibles you mentioned. Somebody comes along and falls in love with it, they may pay close to that ridiculously high number. And I hope they do for the seller. So, I may be wrong, they may be right. And I'm willing to concede that and go, let's try that.

My approach is, “Hey, you may be right. Let's try it for a period of time. But after six or eight weeks, if the market is quiet, then that's the market telling us we're way out of line and we need to listen to the market.” The market is not wrong. The market is more right than you and I will ever be. So if the market's telling us we're way out of whack, then let's listen and move our price down just a little bit. That doesn't mean we go all the way to $100,000 but maybe we go from $200,000 to, let's lower it to $170,000 and see what the market says.

And if we start getting some activity, let's just keep working until we get to that sweet spot. And it may be down at $100,000 where I was right, it may be closer to $200,000 where you were right. But let's work until the market engages and then we know where we're supposed to be.

And a lot of sellers, if I approach them that way, when they want to ask way up here for something, most people are reasonable and go, “Hey, I appreciate that. Let's give it a try. If it doesn't work for a couple of months, we'll move down.” And if we've got that understanding going in, we'll represent the property and go for it and try. And a lot of times, that works a lot. You keep moving the price a little bit where the market notices and engages, you can make deals.

Seth: Did you say six months be the timeframe at which it's like, okay, if we haven't sold this thing by then, we're doing something wrong. We got to make some changes. Did I hear you right? Is that what you said? What would be the timeframe at which you would want to start reevaluating whatever you're doing?

Pat: Two months. I usually tell people, what I was telling you was sort of my speech on the phone with a client is, “Hey, if we hadn't gotten any activity at all in five, six, eight weeks, let's listen and adjust.” So that month and a half, two months, if it's dead, nothing going on. That's a tell-tale indicator to me. It's the price. The price for what it is. And it may be a terrible property, but even a terrible property has a price. So, it's the price for what we're trying to sell. So, let's adjust after a couple of months.

Seth: I don't know how much data you have on this, if anything, maybe just a gut feeling, and I haven't even looked at some of your typical land listings that you put out there. But with a good listing, there are things like really good photos of the property and then there's the information you provide and then there's the price. And in some cases, there's a headline. In your opinion, which of those things is most important to get right? If you don't get this right, it's going to have a much harder time selling. Would it be pictures, you think, or price? I don't know, any ideas?

Pat: My gut is to say price. Because people will be interested in a property without a picture. We never represent a thing without a picture. Some of the residential agents that try to do land, I've seen some of their stuff that has hand-drawn maps, which makes me want to just die. It gives me the red so bad I can't stand it in one or two pictures. And I can tell from the picture they're on the road. They never even got on the property. They took a picture this way on the road, took a picture that way. Makes me want to just scream.

But if the price is right, I'll investigate the property. So I think it's price. But in this day and time, because people are shopping here, they're shopping on their computer, you got to have good mapping, you got to have good imagery. Drones. You got to be able to tell the story in 8, 10, 12, 20 pictures with somebody clicking on the internet because they're not going to look very long. They're going to go to the next one.

Seth: With some of these higher-end properties, is video important at all? Do you go through those motions to make kind of like a one-minute video with drone pictures or anything like that? Or is it not really that crucial of a thing?

Pat: I put myself in the place of the consumer and if I'm looking at a property and it's got a video, I'm going to watch the video. Because it could be something there that I pick up that I'm not getting from the information. So yeah, video is hugely important. It's just the world we live in. I mean, grandma's scrolling through Facebook and she's watching a cat video. They're the people that buy property and sell property. So yeah, video.

We don't video everything. I certainly don't drone video everything. I used to, but getting video of a pine plantation is about the most boring thing you can see. You look just a canopy of green. But if a property's got some character to it, we want to capture that in video and we'll do ground video, we'll do drone. Not every property, but the ones that have a story to tell.

Seth: Yeah. This is another question that you may or may not have any precise idea on, but when you consider all the different ways that potential buyers find your listings and buy your properties, you've got texts, you've got emails, you get listings on different websites. Do you have any idea, the sales that you do, what percentage are attributable to the text you send out versus a website, or how often do you pick up the phone?

Like you know a specific person who's going to buy this thing and be like, “Hey, you want to buy it?” And to say yeah and then you sell it that way. Just to figure out for the typical land seller, whether they're a licensed broker or not, what really packs the most punch in your selling efforts? Is it having that network of people, or is it just listing on the right website? I don't know, what would you say?

Pat: I think it's the websites because that's where people are going to actually investigate a property. Now, the emails, the social posts, the text blast, the Facebook ads, they all link to a website. So, most people, I don't think, look at a text post on our land for sale Instagram page and go, “Oh, man,” and call. No. I think if they're interested, they then go to the site and look at the details. It's like a two-step deal. This teases them, gets them in the door. And then the door, I believe, door to the website that's got the information.

And then that's when they will hit the button and send us an email or pick up the phone and call the agent. But I think it probably started with social. It started with the internet in some way or emails, text, social, got them into the door of the website before they make the initial contact. I think it probably is 7 out of 10.

Seth: Yeah. This is actually something that I have been learning a lot about this year. It's taken me 10 years to get around to it. And this is certainly the geeky stuff that the average land investor might not care about. But there are actually a lot of ways that you can figure out where is traffic coming from? Is it coming from LinkedIn or Instagram? And it's with UTM codes, you basically just bake it into the link and then you can figure out, okay, these number of people that are coming from this platform.

But anyway, if anybody's ever curious about that kind of stuff, just do some Google searching for UTM codes. You can kind of learn how they work and it's a little complicated to figure out in the beginning, but once you grasp it, it's a pretty useful way to track where business is coming from.

Pat: I do not disagree. In fact, I agree with you 100%. I'm very familiar with it. I listen to a lot of tech nerds that they train on Facebook and Instagram. They really get into the weeds, into the minutiae, and that's their business. The reason I don't do it, and I'm familiar with them is I got this much time in a day, this much time left on the planet. I can only do so much. I know the analytics of my website and I see where stuff is coming to my website. So, I try to major in the major. I can't do everything. So what I do, I do well. But I agree with that 100% if somebody is of that mind.

Seth: Yeah. I completely agree with that too. I've spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to implement this stuff this year and honestly, I don't know if it's worth it. I do sort of feel like I've wasted a ton of time and time will tell if it was wasted or not. Because it takes time to aggregate this data. But for sure, I don't think I could say it's the most important thing. It's more just like yeah, it's useful to know.

Pat: Yeah. And if we got John sitting in the next office and that's his job. And John's good at that, that's great. I'd love to hear the information John collates from that, but to do it myself, I can't do it anymore.

Seth: On the subject of selling land, how often do you see seller financing getting involved with these deals? What kind of impact does that have on how quickly and how much you can sell it for and what percentage of your clients, the people selling land through you, are willing to do that?

Pat: We'll have of our listings a handful. So, to put a number on it, if I had to guess a number out of 100 listings, there may be 6, 8, 10 that the seller is legitimately willing to do some sort of seller financing. Most of the time when it gets to us, they're ready to divest. They want in, out. Get it done, get it sold. They don't want to continue the activity with seller financing. A small percentage of people that are actually listing it.

There are a lot of sellers out there that do seller financing is what they want. They're trying to build an annuity, they're trying to build long-term passive income, so to speak. That's their business model and that's all they do primarily. We do those deals on and off through the year for our clients and we occasionally do some ourselves. We used to do a whole lot ourselves, but like my buddy said, partner, he said, “Hey, if we're going to live another 300 years, that'd be a great way to do it.” But time is short. So we're looking at turning over cash.

I give a lot of information and advice to both buyers and sellers regarding seller financing. Because I've done it so much. I understand a lot of the mechanisms and tools and there are a lot of pitfalls in it. I do more steering buyers away from it because most buyers, to them, it's a bandaid. I don't have any money, but this is a way I can buy this property. And they get hurt and tricked. They do something too soon. It's a negative for most people. And I'll stand on that. And I've got videos and books out there that get into the details of that.

I seller finance land. I know it can be done, know it to be the right way to do it. But there are a lot of unscrupulous sellers. There are a lot of very naive buyers. And so, I steer most buyers away from it.

Seth: Makes me wonder, how would you get paid your commission if somebody's doing seller financing? Would that buyer just have to do a bigger down payment to cover that? Or how would that work?

Pat: Yeah. One of our agents sold a really nice piece of property, a large piece of property recently, where the sellers did owner financing on it. And just the down payment was just enough to cover the commission. That's how the seller wanted to do it. And so, it works for us if he's happy with it. If everybody's happy, that's fine.

Seth: How often do you see bank financing getting involved in these deals? I have to imagine there are certain circumstances where banks are willing to finance it. Is that accurate? And if so, when? What would make them comfortable with that?

Pat: In our world, in the southeast and the Midwest, our really big part of the country, there are a lot of lenders. That's all they do. And they have great products for rural real estate. It used to be they had to have a huge amount down. And that is only financed at a short period, 5, 10 years. Not anymore. You can get a 30-year mortgage on rural real estate, just straight-up timberland, farmland, hunting track with 15%, 20% down. And just credit like anybody else, as long as you've got the financials to be able to show you can pay it. Out of 10 deals, probably six or seven of them are lender financed.

Seth: Oh, wow. That's amazing.

Pat: Oh my goodness. Yeah, it's very common. The Louisiana Land Bank. And the Louisiana Land Bank, it's a federal charter for lending for rural land. It'll have different names in different states. I can just go on and on naming banks that are all part of that same federal charter. It's primarily what they do is loaning against unimproved rural property, farmland, timberland, recreational property.

Seth: With both farmland and timberland, there is some fairly concrete ways to value that and appraise it and understand what it's worth in terms of the bank's collateral value and risk they're taking. Recreational land, I have to imagine there are probably ways to do that too.

I think, at least in the parts of the country I've worked, the reason most banks want nothing to do with land that doesn't have an immediate plan for some kind of development is because of the whole collateral value issue. They don't understand what it's worth. Appraisers can do appraisals, but they don't really understand what it's worth either. So it's like, how do we lend on something when we don't know what it's worth?

And there are ways to ignore the collateral value and just look at the borrower themselves. Is this a rich guy or girl? Because if so, we could just get their personal guarantee, and that makes it okay. And maybe this is a question for those lenders, but do you have any idea, how are they able to get comfortable with that? What is it that they are using to underwrite that borrower and get comfortable with the deal?

Pat: Straight up answer is comparable sales. Keep in mind, in our region of the world, and I'm talking about not just Louisiana but the south, southeast, south-central, Midwest. All of these are great recreational areas/timber areas, farmland, comparable sales. I talked to an appraiser right before I got on the phone with you about just a piece of pasture land in Texas, 600 odd acres, the appraiser's doing a deal for us. And he's just going to go pull comps because they're going to be a dozen of them out there he can use.

If I'm selling hunting property on the Mississippi River, my goodness, I personally could give him 50 comps. And I'm in a tiny little part of the world there. He's going to be able to pull comps, all the comps he needs to do it just like he's doing 131 Elm Street. Your point's a good point. Let's say you're in the Pacific Northwest somewhere there and there are 150 acres of just completely undeveloped rural land, there might not be many comps. And so, I get the point there, but in our part of the world, man, this is common as a Coca-Cola.

Seth: Man, that's awesome to know, though. It sounds like because of the existence of comps that sort of solves all the problems, which makes sense. That really is the issue in terms of valuing it, are there good comps or not?

Pat: As far as a third-party appraiser, yeah. Because a lender is reaching out to a third party appraiser and they're taking their word for it and if that third party appraiser can put his hands on comp, everybody's happy.

Seth: Kind of heading into the last little section of our interview here. I wanted to ask you some questions about just your profession of being a land broker. Was there a reason why, and maybe you sort of already answered this, but why did you choose to focus on land specifically instead of houses? Was it because of your friend who kind of convinced you to, or is there something about land? Can you make more money? Is it easier to understand? Is it better people to work with? What are your thoughts on that?

Pat: Look at me, man. I'm a fat country boy with a beard. I'm wearing boots. Look around me, I've got deer and duck. I'd rather be stomping around on 120 acres getting wet up to my waist like I did yesterday than arguing with a lady about the color of the paint in a bathroom on a house. So, it's absolutely just quality of life for me. It really is. And selling rural real estate, it's more of a business decision than it is “Well, I don't like the tile in the hallway.” I'm sorry you don't like it. I'm sorry.

It's that left brain, right brain. It's men are from Mars, women are from Venus kind of deal. I just don't want no part of it, man. I really don't. I can't answer it better than that. It's definitely not more money. It is harder work. It is frustrating, and when you're out in the middle of Louisiana or a Southern July or August summer stomping through a pine plantation with ticks and red bugs, I kind of wish sometimes I was doing something else, but I wouldn't trade it for the world because it's quality of life. How sophisticated is that answer, Seth?

Seth: One of my questions was going to be, what is your most and least favorite thing about what you do? And it sounds like you kind of answered that. Well, maybe you didn't fully answer it, but do you have any other thoughts on that? What is the best and worst part about being a land broker?

Pat: In my opinion, the best part is no two pieces of land are the same, like fingerprints. And so, if you truly enjoy the outdoors, if you enjoy wildlife, you enjoy conservation, nature, all of those things, I do. I enjoy hard work. I'd rather ride around in my Polaris side by side than in Lexus. Again, that's just personality. Putting people together with a property.

Because a lot of times we're selling property to first-time buyers. They've always wanted to own their own land to hunt on. They've always wanted a place to build a house out in a secluded area where they can just be out of the rat race a little bit. And to put people together, even if it's 20 acres, their own first piece of personal property. Oh my goodness, they're happy as they can be. You can't beat that.

But the worst part about it is just like in anything. You got the ups and downs. You got deals that fall through sometimes over the most ridiculous, piddly things. It is hard. It's ridiculously hard work, especially the older you get in the summers. Some of the areas we have to go in that are just very difficult to access. It's just hard work and it's demanding.

A residential agent may show six properties to somebody today. It may take me all day to show one by the time we get there. Get to all the things that are involved in it. Everything is a little bit of a trade-off in life, as you know. And even in this business, as great as it is, it's hard.

And especially when things get hard. Right now, the last couple of years, everybody wants to be in the land business. It's sexy, it's fun. You got to ride the four-wheeler and you got your new Timberland boots and your little hat. And I make fun of these guys. These new land guys. Because everything's great. They're making money hand over fist. But they haven't been punched in the mouth. They haven't gone through those tough years like we did four or five, six years ago when nobody's buying anything. Nobody's selling. On the house side of it, there's always a little more action, but still, I wouldn't trade it.

Seth: No, that makes total sense. You got into this a little bit, well, you mentioned it in passing, how lucrative is this compared to people selling houses? And I know this is a super broad open-ended question with a lot of “it depends” in there, but if somebody just wants to make a ton of money, is this the business for them, or should they be doing commercial or houses or something else?

Pat: I'd make you have to define a ton of money, but I get your question. The way I look at it, I have a handful of guys that are full-time. This is all they do 24/7, 365. And they're six-figure guys. But I'm thinking of a few using some of their examples, they never miss a hunt. They never miss a daughter's volleyball game. They live the life they want to live and make a really good living doing it. Now, there are other people, they just want money, money, money, money as much as they want to make and their quality of life is different and that's okay. It's whatever they want.

If that's what that person wants to do and they want to get from six figures to seven figures and up in the sevens, they probably need to go do commercial real estate in a big metropolitan area. I’ll be honest with you.

If you want quality of life, to be able to live your own life, set your own schedule, work hard, but work when you want to. You can make a very good living doing this and never miss a duck hunt, never miss your daughter's softball game. Because like I say, as long as you got one of these in your pocket, because I've been in duck blinds where I've answered the call and say, “Hey, yeah, I can show that property to you, but it'll be about one o'clock today. Can that work for you? Because I'm in the duck blind, I'm going to be here till 10:30.” That kind of thing. If that matters, this is a great industry to be in. If it's surely money and volume, residential, commercial might be where you want to be.

Seth: Got you. No, that's a good answer. Let's pretend for a second that I'm 22 years old, I'm fresh out of school or whatever I did and I want to start my career. I want to be a licensed land agent or broker like you. Do I need to focus on a specific market? Is there a right in a wrong market to try to do this? Or where would I go to find somebody like you to try to work under them and then sort of start my own thing and my career path that way?

Pat: Ah, that's a good question. I talk to a lot of people throughout the year. A lot of folks that call and they're investigating, moving into our business, moving their license to us or getting licensed to do what we do. And some people, as I talk to them on the phone, I realize, “Hey, this is a good fit, potentially a good fit.” And others, I realize, “Man, it's going to be very difficult.”

The ones that I realize are going to be very difficult other than just red flag stuff are locale. If they are in a metropolitan area, for instance, I had a guy call me from St. Louis, Missouri. Wife's the school teacher. They live there. That's where their home is. He's going to have, and like I told you, you can have a very difficult time because yeah, you can sell a lot of great land in Missouri, but you got to get out of St. Louis to do it. And that means either two-hour, three-hour drive all the time or you got to relocate.

So, the locale matters. Because you brought up some things about some scenarios you're familiar with and those parts of the country just might not lend themselves to enough volume that a person can get their slice of it and make a comfortable living. There are regions of the country down here where I am. The southeast, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, oh my goodness, even the Carolinas, Virginia, definitely in parts of the Midwest, Kentucky, Tennessee. Dude, those are great, great places because, by and large, they're rural states. They have large metropolitan areas, but they're vastly rural areas, vastly rural states. So, the locale is, I've come to learn is extremely important to make it to do this full-time.

Seth: Are you talking about where the person lives, just where they sleep every night? That's important? I guess maybe another way of asking the question is, let's say I live in Franklin County or Parish in Louisiana. I'm looking at your website right now, one of your listings here. What would be a radius around there that I could serve? Is it like the surrounding three counties or something? How would you pick the correct coordinates on earth to be like, I need to live here because then I can serve these areas which have a high volume of land sales. What would the logic be to figuring that out?

Pat: Yeah, good question. You mentioned Franklin Parish, one of our top guys is there. He makes a great living selling primarily the property that he lists in Franklin Parish. And it's a tiny little rural parish, but he also serves, I don't know, five, six parishes around it there. Mostly Franklin Parish, but he's got listings and all of those others ones, these twosies around. So, he sleeps in Franklin Parish, but he can also drive to Catahoula and Concordia parish that are an hour, hour and a half, two hours away.

You got to sleep somewhere that you can get up and work hard that morning. And so, to get up every day and drive two or three hours somewhere, maybe because you got a 20-acre listing that's three hours away, it just starts getting difficult. It becomes financially impractical. You see my point there. You got to be able to wake up and do business in your locale or figure out a way to get somewhere. And to convince those people where you're getting that you can represent them even though you're three hours away. That's part of it too, which goes back to one of my points I made earlier that we'd say no to some stuff because I don't have guys that are right there, boots on the ground, close by. So, in my opinion, a guy's got to be able to wake up and go to work.

Seth: Yes. I think kind of what it's getting at is the importance of actually having boots on the ground, with your own two feet being able to walk a property. And I know for a lot of land investors or land flippers in our community, they don't do that. They buy and sell stuff in states across the country that they've never even been to. I think there is a point you can get doing that just using Google Earth and other data, but there is something you just can't see any other way without getting somebody on-site to see it.

But it makes me wonder, I know one way that I've often tried to deal with the problem is just getting a local photographer or agent to swing by and get pictures for me. It's still not the same as walking it. And there is something about using your own two eyes in the real world versus looking at pictures on a screen. You just have a different perspective of what's going on. But what are some issues that you can identify with boots on the ground that you just can't see any other way and you can't hire somebody to go see it any other way? It needs to be you.

Pat: Yeah. Topography, utilities, amazingly, you can't just make a phone call and quickly ascertain exactly how utilities are going to work. You just can't do that. There may be water right down the road, but the water company is not expanding anymore unless somebody puts in a six-inch line. Well, nobody that's buying a two-acre lot, a tax property is going to spend $48,000 to put in a six-inch water line. So, there are a ton of things like that.

Terrain and topography are the things that I've swerved into where people will call me from the other side of the universe and they want to make an offer on the property. And the first question I always ask is, “Have you seen this? Have you seen the property? - No, no, but we da, da, da, da.” And I know they've been watching videos or infomercials and they've got their one, two, three checklists of how to buy tax properties and flip them down, all that kind of stuff. I've seen the stuff too, and not disparaging that, but most people can't do it well. They're going to get hurt, burned, and embarrassed. Most people are.

And so, I don't even take an offer on a property unless they come to look at it. Unless I know they're a pro and they assure me, hey, they know what they're doing, they understand the risks. They got to get on an airplane, come look at it before I'm even going to write a contract. I'm sorry. Because they're doing it blindly and foolishly. Most people are.

So, being able to walk the property, you quickly can get an idea. You don't even have to walk the whole thing. You just got to be there and go, yes, this fits what I think the highest and best use for this property is, whatever that may be. And the only way to do that is real good information and part of that real good information, not exclusively, but part of it is being able to look at it with your own two eyes.

And again, most properties we represent, and this is a little bit of the chasm between, when you use the phrase a lot of investors and thin properties that we represent investors buy them, but maybe 300 acres of timberland where a lot of investors that we may be referring to may be people that are buying a tax property that's 2.7 acres somewhere in Colorado. There's a whole lot of that for $3,000 or $1,500 or $10,000. That's different than $1.25 million. That guy's not going to make that deal without more information. Did I make the connection, or did I broaden the gap too much for you there?

Seth: No, I kind of knew the answer and what you said corroborated that. It made sense. Yeah.

Pat: We talk about investors, there are a lot of different type of investors. Again, I keep referencing the 1.7-acre tax property in Colorado and you send out 2,700 letters to tax roll in somewhere in Colorado and you're going to offer $2,500 an acre for that. I do some of that stuff blind just for the sport of it. But before I buy the $100,000 property somewhere, I'm going to have more information.

Seth: Yeah. That makes sense.

Pat: I did that one time. I bought a property in Missouri, sight unseen, $20,000 for the experiment. And I had the information, like I say, I'm a licensed broker there. I know the area. It seemed to fit, but my whole goal was the experiment. I figured for $20,000 I wasn't going to get hurt much if I got hurt. We ended up making a little bit on it and I learned the process, but I put my money where my mouth was to try that one time.

Seth: Yeah. I imagine somebody with your experience where you just have the benefit of using your own eyes to see so much and being there on-site, you have the benefit of good information. So, it's probably hard to unpack that and go about it a different way without all the information and be satisfied with that. I would've a hard time with that. So, that makes sense.

In your experience, what are the most common deal killers that make a deal stop that otherwise would've happened? And when I say deal killers, what I'm talking about is, say, if you have a client who's thinking of buying a property and they think they understand it. But then one of your guys or girls goes out and sees an issue and “Oh, don't do it because of this.” Or maybe you have a client who's trying to sell a property and it's almost there, but then something kills the deal. What are the most common problems that ought to be addressed upfront before it's too late?

Pat: Let me address the seller part of it first. In my mind, the biggest deal killer from the seller’s side is not making a counteroffer. It drives me nuts. Now, I understand if somebody makes a ridiculous low ball totally out-of-the-park offer, the thing to say is, “Thank you, but no thank you. We're just too far apart. No, thank you.” I understand that.

But somebody makes a reasonable offer and a seller won't make a counter of any sort, just fries my bacon. And it is a deal killer because I know what the value is, we know where it's going to sell ballpark range. This buyer is coming in good faith. He wants to pay the least amount he can. The seller wants to get the most he can. But there's a number in there that's reasonable that is a win-win. And I'm all for win-wins. And when the seller won't make a counter, even when it's right on the cusp of being his number, just because, “Well, I just blah blah blah” that kind of deal, that's a deal killer. I have no patience with that anymore because it's just not smart, it's not good business. They can call it principled if they want to, but in my mind, it's arrogant obnoxiousness. They won't make any kind of counter to a reasonable offer.

Seth: So, it is driven by pride and ego? Is that what it is, basically?

Pat: Yeah. Well, here's my asking price. If they want it, here's my number. What? No, it's not. You already told me what you're going to sell it for. Make a counter. We can get them to that number. That's what counters do. It's a jockey to get to a point. That's all it is.

From the buyer's side, keep in mind, most of the time when we have an offer on a property, when we've got a deal that's starting to come together, they have looked at the property, they have been there. On the buyer side, I would have to say something falls apart with the appraisal or the lending. Just a glitch that nobody that either wasn't disclosed by the buyer to start with, or we get a really bad appraisal that it’s just a one-off bad appraisal and a lot of times we got to go back and challenge it, and we can get that changed a lot of times, but sometimes you just can't.

Those two things are the financing lender part of it because the lender wants the appraiser. Another piece that calls it to fall apart from the buyer's side, something they just didn't know about. Something that really couldn't be known until you got further in the deal. Doing one right now. There's an encroachment on the property. After the survey, there's a fence across the line. It's a non-issue. I've done this a thousand times. It's a non-issue.

But to the buyer it's a big issue because it's their first time. They've never dealt with an encroachment. Oh, somebody's got a fence across my property. It's a hundredth of an acre, it's nothing. But those are the things that if you can't just reason with them to bridge the gap, it'll kill the deal. Now, I'm going to go try to work with the guy that's encroaching on the property and see if we can come up with a good solution. I'm not going to make him tear his life apart and move this fence for a hundredth of an acre. But we got to figure something out. But that very well may kill this deal. And it was something that nobody knew until we got into the deal.

Seth: Yeah. Those things really disturb me as a land investor. And I guess the reason they disturbed me is in cases when I don't have somebody like you because, yeah, there are absolutely things that no reasonable person could ever figure out without really digging deep and getting on the property and researching everything. And that doesn't happen a lot, but it definitely happens with land and it's unlike a house where a lot of these questions are already answered. Does it perc? Is it buildable? Are the utilities there, this and that?

With land, there are a lot of questions that are unanswered that you got to figure out. And sometimes it's really hard to get those answers. And you don't want to just assume the answer is yes until you really know. Things like wetlands, for example. You can look at this wetlands map, but it's wrong a lot. To really know, you need somebody outside to really evaluate it, who knows what they're looking at. And I hate that stuff about land. It's one of the few things I don't like.

Pat: I agree. You brought up a number of things like the wetlands deal, especially in our part. The only way to know for sure is you have to have a wetlands determination done. And that is a process that you can't just pick up the phone and call and ask a general question. It's a process and the only way to know is to do it. And you don't know the answer until the NRCS goes and does or the court goes and does it. Oh, gosh, yeah, you opened up a whole other avenue of things just with mentioning wetlands. Putting in a bridge you're crossing for a creek.

Seth: Yeah. I know in Louisiana that's a big deal and Florida and Michigan where I'm at. But in other states, it's not an issue at all. I guess that's one of those local issues that you would want to get a local expert input on.

Pat: You mentioned perc. There are a lot of states that are critical. In our part of the country that's not. Because if you got an acre and a quarter, you can get a mechanical septic system. There are just a thousand things you swerve into. And that's why I think the average investor who's watched some videos and watched some infomercials, they get hurt, and embarrassed. They go, “This is just terrible, why would I ever get into this again?” Because they don't look that deep.

Seth: Last question. Back when I used to buy rental properties, I evaluated lots of different deals and a really important part of that evaluation process is understanding what would this property rent for? Not just what rentometer.com tells me, but really knowing from a local property manager what could you rent this thing for given the size and bedrooms and bathrooms and all that stuff. And so, I had a local property manager and I would just hound them every day sending them all these different properties and asking them what would it rent for? And they were gracious enough to respond with their input to me.

But I'm pretty sure I annoyed them with all my questions and wasted a ton of their time and it makes me think about you. Somebody like you probably has a really good handle on what properties are worth, vacant land in particular, which is a really important thing to understand when you're making an offer to somebody, especially if that's a discounted offer or just understanding what is our starting point? What is the basis for this?

And I know what you were talking about earlier, just sending out offers blind to people. A land investor can send a lot of offers before they actually get somebody to say yes, especially when it's a deeply discounted offer.

I'm thinking through a hypothetical situation where I want to use you, Pat, to help me understand what are the values of these properties before I make an offer. What should I already know before I start wasting your time? Should I already have established communication and I'm in a conversation with this seller and I know all these things? Or could I just send you a spreadsheet of a thousand properties and say, “Hey, Pat, give me values for all these things?” Just as an extreme example. How much groundwork should I be doing before I come to you and start asking for your help?

Pat: It's got to be property-specific. I get those calls and emails frequently, as you can imagine. And I put myself out there on the internet and so I understand that's just part of it. And I quickly can discern from the caller email, just like I talked before the gut feeling, the red flags, the cheese factor. Somebody's got a legitimate question about a piece of property, you can tell that I'm not their first thought because they've got a map, they've got some information. Quickly in my office, I'll pull it up on our mapping software and I'll look at it and I'll answer whatever questions I can answer in five minutes from the computer screen.

Now, I'm not going to go drive across the country to give them a free opinion. I get tricked into that sometimes because maybe they own the property and they're thinking about listing it and I've learned to see through a lot of that. But even sometimes, I'll still get tricked, but that's okay. That's just part of the business. I'll go and look at it and give them my two cents and really tear it apart and give them good information. A lot of times I'll list that property, but a lot of times I just got tricked because they're trying to sell it to a friend and they want to know.

But it's got to be property specific. If somebody sent me a list like you described there, not a thousand, but hey, I'm thinking about just making offers on these properties, I'm going to go, “I don't know, you probably need to get somebody that knows those properties better.” I'm going to be polite and defer. Because you know you're just being used for free information.

And the only way to know for sure is for me to go look at that property. I can give a ballpark idea on aerial, but I got to go look at it to really tear it apart. And I can't do that unless I know that I'm doing it for my business and not just for some stranger's benefit a thousand miles away. I get those letters because we own property in a couple of states.

And so, I get all those letters making us offers. And some of them, I know what they're worth because we're selling them. I understand that game. If that's what somebody wants to do, that's fine. I'm not throwing rocks at that. It is a numbers game. You send out a thousand letters, you might get a few phone calls back, but I'm not going to do their work for them for free anymore. I used to, but again, I was hustling, trying to make stuff happen.

Seth: Yeah. Sorry, one last question just out of curiosity. When somebody lists their property with you, is it a six-month commitment or something? Is there a contract? How does that work?

Pat: Yeah, by law you have to have a signed agreement. It's just state law they have to sign to say you can be a third-party representative. There's a listing agreement. Our listing agreements are 12 months simply because, again, we're not selling necessities, we're selling luxuries for the most part. And it takes time to marinate, especially if it's a larger property that they're trying to get top-end retail for, it takes time to marinate. And so, all our listing agreements are 12 months.

If they beat me up because their sister is a residential agent and all they've ever heard is six months, 6%. Yeah, we'll list something six months or nine months. Never list anything less than six months. I've had people try to say hey, I want you to list this for 90 days. No, I'm good but I'm not that good. Thank you. I don't waste my time with that. So, mostly 12 months.

Seth: Cool. Makes perfect sense.

Pat: There's a lot of work to go, because it may take a few days for us to get out there, drone and all the work that's involved. It may take a week or two weeks to get the property on the market just because of what's involved in getting it together.

Seth: Yeah, yeah. What kind of costs are there on your side? I'm sure there are listing fees for different land.com websites and costs of getting photographers out there. How much money do you have to invest into a typical listing just to get it out there?

Pat: That's a good question. So many of our costs are, you'll understand this, a sunk cost, that we already are premium subscribers on all these sites. We've already got all of the economies in place to do our business. And maybe to tear those apart down to the number, I don't know exactly, it's just sunk cost. We do our own photography and video. We're not selling Wilshire Boulevard kind of stuff, so my goodness, the pictures you could take on these things and the 4K video on the drone can improve on that. So, we do all that.

Really it's just time and gas that you're investing in a particular listing. There are some listings because of what they are that I will really hammer some paid advertisements on the internet to drive traffic to that webpage and those are onesies, twosies. I got Facebook ads and stuff running all the time. I look at those as sunk costs too. But we may list a premier sexy marquee property that I'll want to do $1,000 worth of Facebook ads just for that property, so to speak. But for the most part, it's just time and gas.

Seth: Got you. Pat, it's been awesome to talk to you. Thanks for doing this with me. Learned a lot.

Pat: I’m happy to.

Seth: Yeah, yeah. If people want to learn more about you or list property with you or whatever, where should they go? Is that recland.net? Is that the place to go or YouTuber?

Pat: Recland.net is our main site for all of our listings. And it's also got all of our company information. They got links to the blog stuff. If they want to know just general land stuff, our YouTube channel is a good place. I don't sell anything on our social platforms. All I do is give information and they can follow the cookie crumbs back to the website if they want to buy something. I don't sell on our social. And so, they can go watch the videos that RecLand talks on YouTube. Won't sell them a thing. It'll just be talking about the land business.

Seth: What made you do that? I don't know a lot of, I certainly know some, but I wouldn't say it's a normal thing for most real estate brokers or agents to build this big presence on YouTube and spend all the time it takes to do that. What made you gravitate towards that and how big of a role does that play in the grand scheme of RecLand?

Pat: I can answer your main question in three syllables. Gary V, Gary V. Six, seven years ago, I remember exactly where I was. I was on the road, I was listening to Gary V. We just started dabbling in social. Of course, we're on all the websites and stuff, but I had started to dabble in social media because it just seemed like it's what you're supposed to do. And if you've ever listened to him or read him, he's pretty energetic and got a strong opinion.

But he really captured me when he said, “If you're going to do this, you do it. And when you do it, you do it hard. And you don't sell stuff, you give away stuff.” In a nutshell, I'm paraphrasing him. And it all made perfect sense to me. It resonated with me because I hate when I would go online and I would look and all I'm doing is somebody's trying to sell me something and I'm just trying to get information.

I took him to heart and I jumped all in that April, whatever year that was, I can't remember what year it was. That's when I wrote the first couple of eBooks to get those out there and just really started doing as best I could on social, giving the information away. And it's not near where I want it to be, but, but it is there and it's significant. We're way ahead of where most people are. A lot of guys you see now, I've talked to them. They've called me for questions. I'm not saying I'm a grandfather of any of that, but I was the first one, one of the first people in the pool doing it that way. Doing it hard a number of years ago. So that's why.

And I've come to learn that at the end of the day, if I help somebody, the business is going to come to me at some point. What people may need today is information, they might need to make a buy or sell two years from now, but today they need information. Well, I'm going to give them that information so maybe they'll remember me when it comes time to make a transaction down the road.

That's the whole method right there. I just want to be top of mind when the day comes. Because we're selling expensive stuff. We're not selling a gallon of milk that somebody goes and buys one every week. We're selling half a million, expensive stuff, once in a lifetime stuff most of the time. And when that moment comes, I just want to be top of mind if I can when that moment comes. Because it's only going to come once and if it comes at all. So, I want to be there when I can.

Seth: I'm sure it's effective. From my perspective, I know there are lots of land agents out there, but when I think of who would I call? Who would I ask the question? Pat Porter is an obvious answer because there are not many people who have taken the time to put a lot of trustworthy content out on YouTube that's not selling stuff. It makes a person likable when they just give without asking for anything back. And that can go a long way towards being top of mind when somebody actually needs what you have to offer. I've seen that first-hand myself with what I do too.

Pat: I agree, I agree. You look at me, I'm not very likable as I am. I got to do what I can to feed it.

Seth: Folks, Pat told me earlier that he's got a book that he can give away for free to the first say 50 people who reach out to him. If you want to do that, you can email him at office@recland.net. I'll have that email address on the show notes as well if you want to check it out. Again, that’s retipster.com/153. And feel free to hit him up and see if you can get one of those.

Pat: I'm glad to do it.

Seth: Pat, if there was one specific book that you recommended for everybody by you, what would that be? I could link to that in the show notes too.

Pat: It just depends on if they're buying or selling or if they're buying and selling for profit. We've got Land Buying Tips From the Pros, Land Buying Tips From the Pros, part two, How to Sell Your Land Faster by Adding Value. And the fourth one that's in print is How to Profit By Buying and Selling Rural Real Estate. So, it kind of depends on which angle you're coming from.

Seth: Yeah. No, that makes sense. I will link up at least a few of those in this show notes as well if anybody's interested in checking those out directly from Amazon too.

Pat, thanks again. Appreciate having you, and hopefully, we can talk again sometime. It's been great to get to know you and I'm sure you add a ton of value to the people that you work with. And again, if people want to check out Pat's site, recland.net or RecLand Talks on YouTube. I'll link up to both of those things on our show notes.

Pat: Thank you.

Seth: Yeah. I hope you guys enjoyed this, and we'll talk to you next time.

Pat: Seth, thank you, brother. Appreciate it very much. Enjoyed it.

Seth: You bet.