This is episode number 2160. Jill and I are talking about probably mostly me. We’ll talk about the second quarter of 2025 and the real estate market that we’re in. I’ll give an update about what to buy and where to buy it, to be really specific, this week.

Could you imagine? I’m sorry.

No, go ahead.

I was just thinking, if I like I’m sitting here next thing you know you start seeing me like nod off.

I’m sure both of us have done that. This is 2160 episodes. Somebody was sleeping at some point.

By the way, we didn’t start at 2000. Let’s just give it a number. Let’s start there. No, it was zero. We’re probably negative zero because there’s been many throughout the years that we’ve like that sucks. We scrapped it and start over. Now you get what you get.

People listen to the show.

Yes. I’m familiar with that. I get emails. It’s kind of funny. I got an email the other day from a guy who was a member years ago. I don’t know what he’s doing now. He’s like, “I moved on to some other business, but I still listen to you guys.” That’s hilarious. That was cool.

Discord Question: Targeting Higher Valuer Properties

By the way, all week this week is Jack and Jill’s Common Sense Week. We answer a question from our Land Academy member Discord forum. Take a deep dive into land-related topics by popular request.

Stephen B. wrote, “I’ve been a Land Academy member for two years now, but I’ve taken a break from the land business for the last six months or so. I’ve done approximately a dozen deals, most of which have been smaller properties for residential building purposes. Most of my buyers have been direct to the builders. It’s builders themselves buying a lot. I’m looking to start mailing again, but I realize I need to start targeting higher-value properties to offset the fixed costs that come with the business. It’s a bit outside of my approach thus far. For those who have started on the smaller, like in fill lots and then work their way up to larger acreage pieces. Do you have any advice for making that transition? Thanks for the feedback.” I have one.

I do, too. Go ahead first, please.

Add a zero.

You’re going to find a break point in markets or for land specifically. It’s different for every market. Let’s say a different for every zip code where you’re pricing yourself out from a dollar standpoint. Let me give an example. I just looked at a deal in Northern Montana that somebody sent me. It’s $25 million, but I think it’s $26 million and something.

I don’t remember the exact asking price or price, but it’s $222,000 at 20-acre parcels. When you break all those down separate APNs and they’re all adjacent. If you think about deconstructing that transaction, it ends up being about just over $200,000 at a 20-acre property. If you look at all the other 200-acre properties, our 20-acre properties in the area they were listed for way more than $20,000 each.

This could be a real easy double your, I’m not going to do the deal, if I was I wouldn’t talk about it on the show. It could be buy for 25 million. This is adding zeros, Jill. Buy for 25 million or 26 million and sell for 50 million. It would take years to do it. There’s individual stuff that goes on and that’s a lot of transactions, and it’s not 1994 anymore. Transactions can get complicated. I can tell you, whatever little community that’s in, I don’t even get that far. It’s going to have a lot to say about me buying these properties and part parting them out.

True.

With larger parcels like that, the numbers completely work on that deal. There are social reasons why I shouldn’t do it, and I’m not going to do it. Maybe somebody will. I doubt it. I don’t know. Larger properties if you stay within the customary transaction amounts and the way that people do deals in local markets. You’re going to do great. That breached the local culture. They’re not going to want anybody buying and selling that property, starting with the county recorder.

My advice to you is to make sure if you’re going to do larger acre properties that you’re buying for $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, maybe a little more and selling below, let’s say around 120ish. In Southern California, it’s going to be a lot more. In Northern Wisconsin, for example, it’s going to be a lot less. Just make sure you’re within that. It’s not just at zero. That’s my point.

I disagree. Let me tell you why. Here’s what I would do. First of all, like start just by adding a zero, you need to start thinking about ten times what you were doing before. Let’s just say your sweet spot on these info lots, we’re selling things $10,000 to $15,000, which totally makes sense in many markets in the country for infill lots, let’s just say. You’re going for the little things. I want you to do a couple of things. One, just start looking for those properties and let the data pull you to where they are.

This is great advice.

When you add a 0 to your target property price, you need to start thinking about ten times what you were doing before. Share on X

Thank you. How do I do that? When I’m in Zillow or whatever I’m using for my source for phishing/trolling for these deals, number one, set your acreage above the info lot area. Make them all like an acre. Let’s just use that as a good example. Most of the time, I always like to think of less than an acre. I’m going to get in some info. More than an acre. Now I’m going to start getting some acreage. Just say your bottom number is one acre. That takes me out of the little point of 0.09s. Those are all out of the here.

Now I want you to start looking for the sales price. I want you to start targeting things instead of selling for $10,000, $12,000, or $15,000. How about $100,000, $120,000, and $150,000? Just that. You’re on Zillow, you put land, one acre’s a minimum, and your sales price is a minimum of $100,000. Now, take a step back at the country and start moving all around and let it tell you where those deals are instead of trying to cram them in somewhere and trying to make something work. You’ll find them.

That’s brilliant advice, Jill.

Thank you.

No better way to summarize that.

I added a zero on the property, and I definitely added a zero on the prices.

No better way to summarize it.

Thank you.

Q2 2025 Real Estate Market Update

Let’s look at the second quarter of this year and talk about where to buy property and what types of property to buy. Jill let the cat out of the bag with where you’re going to troll around and fish around. We got busted for using the word trolling on this, Jill.

I miss this.

It’s just a really negative word.

I missed the memo.

We’re trolling on Facebook like awful, terrible people do.

I see what you’re saying.

We just mean trolling. If you’re older than 45 when someone says trolling you, you mean you’re efficient. “You’ve got the electric motor in your boat, and you’re trolling around.”

You’re going slow, and your lines in the water just you just looking right?

If you’re younger than 35, trolling is a horrific thing. Unless you’re a troll, then you like it. You like it when we talk about trolls.

What if you look like a troll? That’s a whole other thing.

Jill and I, we lived at the beach. We lived next to somebody whose nickname was the troll.

He is a troll.

Look for markets that went nuts in 2021. You can still find some amazing deals there today. Share on X

He looked like a troll.

He kind of did. That was kind of weird.

He went to the local gym there.

I forgot about that.

I think about that guy once in a while because he’s not anyone I’ve ever talked to and never will. He would drive his little golf cart around and be a troll.

He wasn’t outgoing. He was proud of it. That was his nickname. He’s like, “This is my nickname.” Like, “All right.”

He would go to his gym that he owned and had a happy life.

That was weird. I thought I was Captain Random. That was a good one.

The second quarter of 2025, here’s what’s happening. We’ve had crazy, historic high interest rates over the last decade, let’s call it. It’s starting to come apart at the seams. There are a number of foreclosures that are happening. All house foreclosures are happening. All over the country are escalating pretty severely because it the 3 in 2 and 5 in 1 interest rates. The adjustable interest rates are kicking in.

Long story short, if you did a 3 in 1 and 5 in 1 interest rate around 2020, 2023, it’s kicking in, and it doubles the price of your mortgage month to month. Number two, after COVID. COVID destroyed the continuity of the real estate market. Everything was grossly overpriced. Had the opposite effect of what I at the time predicted. I thought it was going to really reduce. Everyone was just going to hunker down and state knots had the opposite effect. Everybody moved out of cities, completely jacked up prices, artificially so, and got these 3 in 1 and 5 in 1 mortgages. Now the hangover is setting in from all of this. We can see it in the data.

There are literally 40% more properties on the market than there were last year. That’s a staggering statistic. We talk about it on the Thursday call, Jill and I, with the Land Academy members every single week, and we track it week by week, and it’s getting very severe. What that means is there’s a ton more property on the market, all types of property, including commercial. It’s a buyer’s market. You have a choice. Send a bunch of mail out. We just did an 8,000-unit mailer in a mountain town in the Rocky Mountains. I’ve never seen a response like this. We just have the choice of what to buy. What’s the effect of that is when we’re staring at fifteen deals on our desk, we’re going to pick the one where we cannot lose.

What’s great about that particular mailer is that when it hit, it wasn’t as severe as now. It hit more than three months ago, and now they’re like coming out of the woodwork still. It’s amazing to me. We timed it. You timed it so perfectly. It was good.

That’s the market update. What to buy? I cannot emphasize this enough. I would like you to consider. Jill and I own House Academy also. We never talk about it, largely because the last several years just hasn’t been a good time to buy a house. It’s an amazing time to buy a house now. Please take a look at House Academy, or if you are a recovering many members in Land Academy are recovering rehabbers. We bought a house, rehabbed it, and hated every second of it. We’re in that group. That’s not what we do. We buy a house. We don’t even clean it up. We don’t even sweep and just resell it. We sell it for $40,000 to $100,000 more.

There go.

We’re very effectively doing that. I’d encourage you to do the same thing. Where to buy? That’s even easier. Please look up sources of data. Realtor.com has a whole data set on this, as does Redfin, about where the foreclosures are in the market. I’m not saying go buy foreclosures. Don’t do that. There’s all kinds of competition. That type of business is burned.

Foreclosure buying properties that are in foreclosure status or tax deeds or tax liens, I would walk away from that. Back in the day, it was amazing. It’s not anymore. It’s too competitive. Where there are foreclosures and where the market was so hot like in Austin. Austin is in a huge hangover situation. Look for like kind markets where that just went nuts in 2021. That’s where you’re to find some amazing deals. Do you know why? It’s because Austin is still a cool place.

Self-driving. Good businesses.

There’s still a natural demand. It still passes a red, green, and yellow test all day long.

They overdid it.

Tomorrow’s Topic: Number One Mistake Investors Make When Handling Seller Calls

Join us tomorrow where Jill and I discuss the number one mistake investors make when handling seller calls. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill, information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.