This is episode number 2120. Jill and I are talking about why emotional decisions can kill your land deals.

Emotional decisions can kill a lot of things. You are never going to live financially if you’re always picking emotionally. Let’s talk about this for a moment. What have been some of your emotional decisions?

I haven’t had any. I don’t have any emotional decisions.

I was wondering if it was the one in the driveway where we were on the fence about Model A or Model B. That was an emotional decision.

Emotional Decisions In Purchases

I’ll let the reader decide. Jill and I purchased an additional recreation vehicle. It seems excessive. We have spent 2 full seasons, probably 6 out of the 12 months or maybe more.

Two seasons? I was thinking of three. This has been our third year. We’re only in our fourth year.

We’ve got this large Class A Newmar Dutch Star, which Jill and I are in love with. We’ve named him Lorax because he’s not the most environmentally efficient machine on the planet. Through our three years of travels, we have realized that there are lots of places that we would like to go and stay where the rig is too big. We seek out RV parks because it’s not an off-grid machine.

I’ve been secretly shopping for an over-cab truck camper. We bought, in addition to this one, a large Ford F-350 with a truck over camper. I didn’t overpay. I didn’t underpay. If it was a piece of land, I would not have purchased it. It wasn’t cheap enough but it was the right deal, the right time, the right seller, and a bunch of other stuff.

It was ready to go. I got it with dishes.

There was a convenience factor.

That’s where I’m going. It was a little bit emotional.

There was a convenience factor that outweighed the extra money, which is the very foundation for us when we buy and sell real estate. A seller’s on the phone and we say, “We’re going to pay X.” They’re like, “Is it retail?” We’re like, “No, but you’re going to get a check next week or two weeks from now.” We were the consumers at the end of that.

Here’s how you know it’s a little bit emotional and you might not be making the best deal. When the seller fills it up with gas, washes it, and buys you things. They’re like, “Here you go.” They buy you a new set of hoses. You’re like, “They want this to go through.”

Did that happen?

No, but I’m saying they did wash it and do a few things. I’m like, “They left a lot of nice stuff in there.” It was either that or his wife was done. That was my other thought. We’re not sure they even slept in it.

We weren’t setting any records on that acquisition.

No.

It was a huge, massive 25% price reduction before I picked up the phone to call the guy. It was on the market for a long time because it was overpriced.

Emotional Vs. Business Decisions

There’s stuff that you make emotional decisions on, like your wife’s happiness and your primary residence.

That is a great example.

You might have to bite the bullet because you want to stay married. When it comes to your business, you have to make those business decisions. I find myself saying that all the time. There are a lot of examples in my coaching calls where I say those exact words. I’m like, “You have to do it. It’s business. There’s nothing personal about it.”

There are things you do make emotional decisions about, like your wife's happiness and your primary residence. In those cases, you might have to bite the bullet because you want to stay married. But when it comes to your business, you have to make… Share on X

Mastering Land Acquisition: Mobile Homes & Due Diligence Insights

I have a lot of questions about emotion in a minute. All week, Jill and I will be talking about helpful land acquisition rules we didn’t fully realize that we live by. Everything in Land Academy, we’ve always been doing it this way. It has a name. Each day on the show, we answer a question from our Land Academy member Discord forum and take a deep dive into land-related topics by popular requests.

I’d like to point this out too. We’ve never had it before in Discord and public areas. If you want to be in the free public area of the Land Academy Discord forum, send a note to Support@LandAcademy.com and they’ll get you set up. The question James wrote is, “I keep coming across vacant lots that have mobile homes on them. The mobile homes require permitting to move and sometimes have a loan slash lien. What is the standard practice for due diligence in this situation to avoid slowing down the purchase timeline?”

I had to re-read this question to see if it was real. James, I know, is very new. If you’ve ever tuned in to the show for any length, you know how much Jill and I love surprise mobile homes on our acquisition candidate. When we get properties that come back because we sent a land mailer out and it’s got a mobile home on it, we jump up and down around the office and high-five each other.

The question here is, “What do you guys do when the mobile homes are on there? They require permitting to move. They sometimes have a lien.” That’s excellent, both of those things. Number one, we’re not moving it. That never has entered my mind like, “Let’s get that off of there.” This isn’t a house where you get the old stuff out, clean it all up, and resell it.

You’re not going to improve your land because it’s prettier in almost all cases. The stuff that’s on the land, when you find it, is a bonus. It’s going to make it more sellable, not less sellable in 99% of the cases. If there are old cars in the back of an old dilapidated mobile home, you struck gold. The standard due diligence practice is, “That’s awesome. There’s a mobile home there.” You check that and move on to the next topic.

It doesn’t matter what the condition is. Here’s why. It’s because the person who lived in that mobile home figured out the utilities. There’s a septic system somewhere. There’s some version of water, hopefully electric, and all of those things. You have to look into it and find out if it’s there. A regular old inspection is going to smoke all that stuff out.

Whether it’s got a loan or a lien on it, the mobile home and the land don’t have separate liens or loans. It’s all one. If it does have a loan on it, then you’re going to treat it like if you bought or sold a house. These are all positive things. The loan might drive the person in a better way for you as a buyer to make a sales decision to stop making the payments on something that they maybe are not using.

The standard due diligence practice that you’re asking here in the situation, James, is this. Number one, you need to get eyes on it. I would either hire a photographer, which we can easily go out and find a photographer or videographer and get some pictures, or my first choice is to get a local agent involved. In these situations, I’m okay with that. I don’t need an official BOG to do it. I would get a local agent to go out there and see if they can get into it. Has anyone been living in it? Do the doors lock? They’ll have to get access and everything from the seller. It’s no problem. A local agent can go out, look at it, take some pictures for you, and give you an idea of what they think it’s worth. You’re going to kill 2 birds with 1 stone there.

We’ve had these situations where an agent goes out and says, “What’s great about this thing is it’s got excellent air conditioning because it’s missing a wall.” We’re like, “Thank you. Now I know what I’m dealing with.” I still say, “Leave it because someone’s going to fix it, move it, or whatever they want on that when they buy it for me. That’s what’s going to happen.”

If an agent comes back and says, “The first situation is there’s not a wall there,” I’d be like, “I’m treating it like regular land with utilities there. I’m not going to do much more than that for due diligence. I’ll find out what else is there and if it is working by calling the county and figuring that out.” In the other scenario where the agent comes back and says, “It looks like he passed on. The cleaning person is still going there. It’s furnished and everything,” I’m going to do a regular inspection like I would a house.

I can do all this remotely. I don’t have to be there. My agent can be my boots on the ground. If I’ve already got this connection with this agent, then I’m going to give them the listing. It’s going to work out great, and they know that. That’s why they’re putting in this time with me. That’s it. I’m going through a normal escrow. Paying off the lien is satisfying as it would a mortgage at the time of closing.

James, if you don’t like mobile homes on your land, please call us. We’ll help you. We’ll do the deal together. You don’t have to do anything.

We have them popping up. We had something pop up on our Thursday member call where we were looking at land with mobiles and trying to figure out, “Is it worth it? Would you do this deal money-wise?” Feel free to pipe in and ask questions like, “Did you already cover this? How did that work out? Who do I call for this? What’s needed?” We’ll cover it in more depth there.

Our glee for mobile homes started exactly as you described. We sent out a bunch of mail in a municipality, a ZIP code, or a county, I don’t remember, that didn’t separate vacant land and vacant land with mobile homes on it. They didn’t separate it. They didn’t care from a tax standpoint. Everybody who had a mobile home on their land got a letter from us. We bought a bunch of deals and did incredibly well on it. It became a new business model. Congratulations. That’s great.

Why Emotional Decisions Can Kill Your Land Deals—And What to Do Instead

Our topic is about why emotional decisions can kill your land deals. I’m going to tell a story. One of the things that I had to get over as a young land investor was I would see things in a potential land deal that weren’t there. Why? It’s because I wanted to be successful. I wanted to do a bunch of deals. For all the reasons that you were part of Land Academy or you’re tuning in to the show, I wanted to speed it up. I was like, “I want to get this going. I want to see it.”

I would look at land deals and forego the fact that I had access because it was cheap. Back in that day, it worked in my favor. Since we have access to all this technology and we can run due diligence quickly in a matter of seconds on Google Earth specifically to see what’s going on there, I don’t have to make emotional decisions anymore. I can look at the facts and decide. This is a Tony Robbins thing. He has written whole books about this. Emotion will destroy your chance for success both personally and professionally.

It’s because you’re not looking at things in any other way. I love Tony Robbins. I’m trying to think of his philosophy here. That’s why I’m asking you.

Emotion will destroy your chance for success, both personally and professionally, because you're not looking at things in any other way. Share on X

This is my opinion, which is not necessarily appropriate for everybody. I’m learning that. Pragmatism and being a realist is where you should start with everything. You should start out thinking, “How much is this going to cost? Where does it fit in my balance sheet? Where does it fit in my life? I got all the eight As. Now, how do I feel about it?” You’re having feelings. Hold on. Shove your feelings aside. Get all the facts straight and then have some feelings.

Welcome to my world. He’s like, “Shove your feelings aside. What do you do with your feelings? You swallow them.”

I knew this topic was going to come out like this.

What’s very funny about the whole situation of the entire team at Land Academy is it is predominantly female, not male. It is hilarious. The poor guy deals with a lot of feelings in this world and a lot of estrogen. It’s great.

Why is that? I’ll tell you why. It’s because Jill attracts female land investors. Land Academy is much better for it.

I was speaking with our staff. We have strong, smart-cookie females on our team, which is good.

Selfishly, it all adds up to me having to do a lot less stuff. They’re not satisfied with how I do stuff so they go do it themselves.

I have to say one positive thing to end this here. I have a story. You brought up Tony Robbins. I love Tony Robbins. It made me think of a story. It was many years ago. I started listening to Dave Ramsey. Years ago, I was listening to a guy who called in. I know you’ve heard me say this several times. He was asking about some investment. He was like, “I want to make this investment. It’s going to be good for our family. I want to do this. It’s going to be great. Here’s all the math. What do you think, Dave?”

You know Dave Ramsey. He wants to know, “What’s your income? What are you spending? How many kids do you have? What’s your mortgage? Do you have car payments? Do you have a contingency plan?” He goes through all the checklists of everything. He has one last question for the guy before he makes this crazy investment in whatever it is he wants to do. Dave Ramsey says, “What does your wife say?” The guy is like, “What do you mean?” Dave was like, “Your wife’s gut instinct is important here.”

There are some times that there’s a little flicker of emotion and it’s our female gut intuition that you want to listen to. Don’t make that the driving force. It’s about your gut to red flags. Is your tummy rumbling and you’re a little bit sick? Do you think you’re going to lose sleep over this? That’s the one little emotional thing I want you to pay attention to.

There’s no planet that you should be making any material decision without your wife being not only informed about it but doing it with you. That’s how it is. That is a rookie mistake.

If you think you’re going to start as a land investor and your wife hates this, and every time you spend a dollar, she’s cringing, this is not going to work.

Ask your wife if you should be buying and selling land and see what she says.

I always ask that. When I talk to people who are thinking about doing this and getting into investing and everything that we do, that’s always my question. It’s not just wives. It’s women and men. I’m like, “Do you have a partner?” They’re like, “Yes.” I’m like, “How does your partner feel about this?” It doesn’t matter that it’s this. It could be you going back to college and cutting your job hours in half because you are going to college. They need to be on the same page with you or it’s not going to work.

Your partner needs to be on the same page as you, or it’s not going to work. Share on X

Jill and I are very lucky that we want to go to the same place in life. We have differing opinions about how to get there and a lot of stuff like that but when I wake up and say, “I was looking at this company. Maybe we should buy it,” she doesn’t say, “You’re off your rock. Go to work.” We might get to that later but she’ll look at it and we’ll talk.

I’m fortunate because I’ve been in relationships in the past where everything is head-to-head. It’s all animosity. No matter what I say, they’re like, “That’s a terrible idea.” Getting your spouse’s opinion is imperative, and not only their opinion but our life could improve. If you’re lucky enough to be with somebody like Jill, male or female, and have a past experience so you can appreciate you’re moving through life together, that’s huge. You can get anything done if that’s the case.

That’s what I’m looking for. It’s not the approval. It’s the agreement. Does that make sense?

I agree.

There’s a word I’m missing and I’m sure you’ll remind me later like, “On that episode, the word you are looking for is blank.” Please feel free to remind me and send us a note. I know you that’s reading this is like, “Jill, I know the word. I’m shouting it right now.”

Join us in the next episode as Jill and I are going to discuss building a weekly land mailer schedule to ensure deal flow. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.