This is episode number 2174. Jill and I are talking about how to choose internet groups that make you a better person. We had a very long discussion, Jill and I, with a group of people about this exact topic, who are in the Land Academy, because we want to know why smart people are continuing to join the Land Academy. There are so many more options than there were even just a few years ago, even really just a year ago. Jill and I are talking about it. We’ll see what happens.

I’m pretty sure Reddit is not one.

Reddit, we’ll talk about it in a second. Each day on the show, we answer a question from our Land Academy member Discord forum. Take a deep dive into land-related topics by your request.

Lisette wrote, “When testing for reason in large zip codes, how many miles out do you go? The zip code has a lot of variation depending on which area the land is located in.”

Understanding Zip Codes & APN Schemes

This is a very good question. When we started doing this, Jill and I, we would send out mail by county. We just didn’t have the level of data that we have now. The county is even worse because it’s incredibly diverse. Think about the county you live in, how many positive areas are there real estate values change? Block by block. From where you live, I’m sure real estate values change pretty dramatically.

To combat that, rather than go asset by asset like we do when we price mailers for houses with land, we take the entire zip code, which makes it a little bit more manageable, and break it down into like-kind acreage sizes. First, let all the five acres go together, or the 2 1/2 to 5 acres go together, or whatever the data says to do. From there, we sort in order of assessor’s parcel number, APN. Now, you’ve got theoretically properties that are close to each other geographically, because when the APNs were created by whatever assessor was there at the time, usually in the 40s, 50s, 60s, maybe before that, they would issue tranches of APNs all at the same time to a developer.

Those properties with a pretty high degree of certainty over the years, we have found they’re accurately priced together. This helps you to directly answer your question. It helps the job of testing for the reason that you’re done. It’s much easier. You only have to test 1 or 2 units theoretically in that APN scheme. I hope that helps. You don’t want to just not sort for anything and then start testing because that’ll take you a very long time.

The mileage question isn’t even anything that we look at, which is true. I know that we don’t talk about miles. We talk about zip codes.

It’s not. You don’t want to go miles out. You want to only ever look at tests for the reason for properties that you believe are real comparison values, so like-kind property. If you’ve got a two-acre property on one end of the zip code, this is a completely different APN scheme than a two-acre property on the other end of the zip code, chances are, they’re not real comparison values.

Look, I know this is complicated. I know it is. We’ve covered this over for ten years now. This is not the first time we’ve answered this topic. If there were an easier way, we would have screamed it out by now, but there are ways to make this much easier on yourself than just follow common sense. When you look at a house, if you want to find comparison values for the house that you live in or maybe a house that you’re thinking about buying, you don’t go to the other end of the zip code.

In fact, you don’t even go one subdivision over. You usually just look in the same sub or the same immediate area and see if it’s comparably priced. Thank you for Jill, because that’s you don’t go miles out. Our topic, how to choose in net groups that make you a better person. This came from just the explosion of internet groups that you can join that I’ve noticed in the last 12 to 24 months. Maybe it’s been going on a lot longer than that. How long it has it been?

A lot longer, yeah. Are we talking real estate investor groups? That’s where my mind goes because I’m in several of those. We can talk about all the other groups, too.

I’d like to make it a bigger funnel for purposes of this discussion because, if you just read recently on the internet that the most popular videos out there are how to put makeup on.

That’s funny. I just had this conversation with kid number one. I was playing with my new hair curler. If you’re seeing me, you’re looking at my curls like one. “One side’s a little looser.” I’m still learning. I just told the kid, “I cannot imagine where I would be if I didn’t have YouTube teach me how to use fill in the blank. It’s beauty stuff like a hair thing.” She’s like, “Don’t think I know that about makeup.” I’m like, “Yeah.” I believe that to be true. Go ahead.

The Rise Of Online Groups & Choosing With Intention

Social media makes sure that you have to constantly keep up with it to advertise whatever you’re selling. We have famously for a lot of years said we don’t do that. Members join because they find us. That’s 98% true up to this date. Recently, we’ve been horsing around with it. We’re finding that we get much better members, much more intelligent members, if we utilize people who have a better chance of succeeding if we play their game. It got me to thinking, there are all these groups out there. Hawking education is just plastered everywhere you look, all over social media. I wanted to just open it up. I would only ever join a group. I would only ever sit in any group physically or on the Internet that’s going to make me a better person, and I can learn.

Isn’t that funny? There are groups for everything now. There are groups for “I homeschool my kids and I’m a stay-at-home mom,” like whatever. “I homeschool my kids, and I’m an artist, and I raise pets on the side.” There are groups for that, not kidding. Even like education programs, like I can help you do, if you do all three of these things, you’re a painter, you’re homeschooling your kids, and you also sell pets, whatever. You also breed, breed labradoodles. I can help you make it even more efficient. Join my group. Seriously.

There are groups for everything now—whatever unique combo of passions you have, there's a tribe for you. And the reason you join a group? Because those people are your people. Share on X

How To Know Which Groups Are Right For You

This is the conversation with what did I have? What is the reason that you would join a group? Those people are your people?

Yes. It needs to be all my niches or a version of my niches and my important niches. Does that make sense?

Yeah. I agree with you on the cause. I was thinking about that too. Where do I scroll? When I looked at my phone just this morning, I realized I was only scrolling and stopping on two things. Do you know what they were?

Wait, let me guess. You’re just scrolling in the morning?

Yes.

Two things got my attention. I don’t know. What one was really pretty pictures of snow-covered mountains. Two was videos of bison. There’s this photographer. This guy’s got some really good shots of these bison walking around.

Sounds like you want to go back to Yellowstone.

I does.

That’s what the Internet, I’m sure, is thinking. You’re going to get all kinds of stuff on that.

Especially since I said it out loud and my phone’s around. It picked up on all that. Anyway, I guess you have to be careful. You don’t want to fall into a negative group, obviously. You want to make sure it’s a positive group. What sings to you? What’s important to you? The groups I’m in are like we just talked about, nature, and certain animals. I knew about those eagles on the news and the baby eagles. They’ve named them, by the way, Gizmo.

What world do you live in?

I cannot remember the other one’s name, but one is a Gizmo. I remember that one for obvious reasons. It’s 2 of the 3. One of the eagle babies didn’t make it. I’m into that. I think that makes me a better person. I’m totally into other investors. I’m not into so much, I’m into new investors. It was interesting, but not for established investors. I want to know what the new guys are doing, which is really who we are anyway. That’s why you’re here on this podcast, because we like helping people getting still going here. I like answering little questions like, “That’s good, but did you look over here and consider this?” I like doing stuff like that.

I would only ever join a group where there’s somebody that was so much to my senior. I don’t mean by age, but by experience and whatever I’m trying to learn or do or whatever that I would then that’s it. I think one of the problems that I’m seeing when I go out on the internet and investigate all this stuff, or research it, I should say, is that there are just very young kids with no experience to have a group in there.

Standing in the ring in the middle of the ring, instructing people to do stuff. I don’t care if it’s playing the guitar or anything. They don’t have enough experience to do this. In the end, at the root of our soul here, is this desire for us to be part of a like-kind community and be accepted in it? That’s what’s going on, and I also think that’s how things like al-qaeda start. Everybody wants to be so bad and be part of a group that if it becomes a religious radicalization group, they’re going to do that.

That’s scary.

If you’re going to sit around saying, “I know I’m a land investor in my soul and I want to learn from people who’ve done it and who I can identify with.” This is the key. I can identify with how they talk, what they look like, how they go about things, and what their opinions are on things like groups to join. Things like that. It’s probably going to be a good fit.

You want to learn from people you can truly identify with—how they talk, how they think, and how they approach things. That’s the key to finding the right fit. Share on X

If you want to Ferrari bad and one of your friends is just trying to group to buy and sell land, this place is probably not for you. I’m not selling Land Academy or any of that. It’s very Jill, and I had this conversation once in a while because all of our kids are out of the house and have jobs and the whole thing. We watched the first kid grow up as a toddler in the real early 2000s. Each kid was four years later.

The amount of stuff that the last one had to sift through socially on the Internet to find out any version of reality is sad. I feel bad. It’s only going to get worse. I hope that you can find a group that you can trust and where you’re appreciated and learn something, and be a positive part of. Join us tomorrow, where Jill and I discuss how to successfully buy land when values are going down instead of up. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill, information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.