This is episode number 2222. Jill and I are talking about what to expect as a brand-new land investor.

I’ve got three things to talk about, three important points to make that you need to have in your head and be thinking about to be successful.

Each day on the show, we answer a question from our Land Academy Member Discord Forum. We take a deep dive into land-related topics at your request. I’m going to do something a little bit different with the question in this episode. I’m going to read it because it’s long and it’s a string. The reason I included this is that I want you to know what you would expect if you’re a Land Academy Member in Discord.

It’s how the conversations flow.

Three people are talking to each other in here. Some are new, some aren’t. NM says, “Should we exclude churches from our listing during the scrubbing process of a mailer? Should we mail churches offers?” Joseph says, “I’m working on a deal right now with the church! They’ve got a piece of land attached to their main parking lot that they don’t use, and they need the dough. Keep churches in! Could not agree more.”

NM says, “Thank you, Joseph. In my DataTree list, I have some properties that show acres as zero, but when I search on ParcelFact, I see them having a value. However, I notice the structures on these lots, such as a church building, a parking lot, etc. Should I keep those in properties that show zero from DataTree?”

This is what I said before. Different data sets are tricky. You have to play around with them and get to know them, and get both of your hands in there like you do at the beach with sand. Once you’re comfortable understanding what’s real and what’s not, you should do it. I will make a simple, hardcore comment that everyone should listen to. Smaller mailers are bad. Does that mean you should send an offer to the United States of America? Absolutely not. It’s never going to get responded to. Why would somebody make a mailer smaller, Jill? What would be the thought process on making a mailer smaller?

Trying to save money, and they shouldn’t.

Trying to save $100.

Shouldn’t do it.

This is not the time or place to save money. If you’re just starting out, and that’s what this episode is about, eat ramen noodles. NM says, “There are some APNs or parcel numbers that DataTree is giving, which are not listed in ParcelFacts. Should I even consider these lots?” Yes. They deserve an investigation. The answer is, “Heck, yes.” There are some counties and whole counties that have data sets for certain portions of land and rural parts that don’t have an acreage assigned to them.

Maybe the acreages are assigned right in the legal description, and they’re not in the category that DataTree usually puts acreages in. That’s what’s happening here because 42 assessors ago decided that they should be in the legal description, and they’re not. These people are not database experts like we are. They’re assessors.

This is Joseph responding, and I completely agree with him. This is why I included it. “I’m of the opinion that the harder to pull the data within reason, the better the area is.” I agree with this because nobody is willing to go through what we’re talking about here. This is one more hurdle that your average property mailer won’t go through. If you’re willing to put in the time, then you’ll see the results. Also, I don’t use ParcelFact. I use a different product, but DataTree or the county is the place to hunt these things down to see if it’s consistent.

Personal note on my part, we use all those things. We don’t just use one. We start with ParcelFact. If it doesn’t give us the information that we want, which is almost never, then we move on to the county, DataTree, or whatever else. Maybe the square footage is listed. This is a great point, or the county doesn’t track it well. I’d start with DataTree and see if you can find it. No land is zero acres, by the way. I hope that helps. How much time did Joseph save this guy, whoever NM is?

Weeks, probably.

You could have sent out four full mailers and realized that.

Something is wrong. It’s not right. That’s the value of being here.

This episode’s topic is what to expect as a brand-new land investor.

Let Go Of Assumptions

I’ve got three things I want to talk about with you along these lines. Coming in new, you’re excited, you’re fired up, you’re ready to go. You probably didn’t catch the 24-month millionaire program yet. You’re not sure about this yet. You’re like, “I’m going to start making money in month one.” You just need the money, or you’re excited. That is what I’m trying to say here. You need to be methodical about this. My point number one of what to expect as a brand-new investor is that you need to toss out your preconceived notions about what you think is possible right now, and what you think is the right way to do things.

As a brand new investor, you need to toss out your preconceived notions about what’s possible and what you think is the right way to do things. Share on X

For example, this question was asked by NM in our Discord group, “I don’t know what to do with churches.” I would think who is going to buy land from a church. What church would sell its land? The church is on it. You would be surprised. Joseph had a property where they’re selling the lot next door, but so often, when people pass on, they will gift properties they’ve had to their churches. There’s no one in their family. They didn’t have any kids. Everybody is gone. Where are they going to leave it when it goes away? Often, it’s through the church.

The Catholic church is the largest real estate owner in the world.

Thank you. That’s one example of a preconceived notion that a lot of people probably have. They are reading this right now, and they’re like, “I had no idea that I could be collecting so much great property to buy and sell from churches.” That’s my point one. It goes even deeper. How do I know this? It’s because we have many years of Land Academy.

I know from speaking to a lot of new people in our group, things that they didn’t realize until they got in and understood how we talked to them about pricing mailers. They’re like, “That can’t work. Why would I send out a mailer to buy at 20%? I buy at 80% and sell at 90%.” I’d be like, “There are so many things wrong with that thought process,” but in their head, it makes sense. We don’t need to go into great detail on that. Do you want me to?

What’s the summary on that? What should they be thinking?

What they should be thinking is it’s a situation that’s not a dollar amount, number one. Number two, it’s about you needing to be careful, buy things right, and plan for things that can go wrong, too. Imagine a garage sale. It’s like that. We use that analogy a lot because this is what we’re doing every day. Why buy land? I’m buying it from somebody with all his tools and everything out of his garage that he was told to clear out by his wife because they’re moving, or it has taken up too much space. It’s all on the lawn. It doesn’t matter if I’m offering him $250 or $25. It’s like, “Just get it off my lawn and it needs to be a number that makes sense. It’s not going to result in a better outcome. Go ahead.”

This is what Jill was saying. She’s just too nice to directly say it, but I will say it. Listen to us. If you’re brand new, listen to what we’re saying. Question everything. Ask a ton of questions. We’ve made all those mistakes. We’ve done mailers. We buy for $80,000, and try to sell for $90,000. In a certain environment, it works.

The Commitment & Work Required

Number two, as a brand-new investor, some people don’t properly prepare themselves for how much work this is going to take. This is going to be your life. If you want to be successful at it, you need to start saying no to a lot of things. You need to prepare your family, and you need to put your heart and soul into this. I have so many people who are not successful because they’re half doing it, half not.

As a new investor, many underestimate the work involved. This will become your life. To succeed, you must commit fully, say no often, and prepare your family. Share on X

“I thought this was going to be a side hustle.” For them, a side hustle is two hours a week. Hold on. I want you to win at this. You need to come at it and give it your all. As Jack said, he used another example earlier in the question, which was, you need to spend some time and get to know this data, because guess what? Even though you get to know DataTree in and out, and you’ve got it all figured out, and you’re good at downloading and scrubbing the data, the minute you go to a new state in a new county, you’re going to relearn it.

It’s not you’re relearning DataTree, but you’re relearning what that county cares about. All the outcomes from DataTree are going to be a little bit different because this county cares about bedrooms and bathrooms, and you could use that to scrub out property structures, but this county doesn’t. They use a percentage of improvement or something like that. You’ve got to plan for work. It’s going to take time, and it’s going to take giving it your all. I know this too, not only from Land Academy, but from my own personal experience.

When I got involved in this with Jack, and forever, it’s been us until I had these employees and the staff that could do it for me, but we ate and lived this. It was up in the morning. It might be a 6:00 AM seller calling. I’ve got to take it. They’re on the East Coast. It’s 9:00. I’ve got to answer the phone. You’ve got to plan for that. Do you want to add to that?

No.

Embracing Mistakes & Continuous Learning

This is my third thing that you want to be prepared for and expect. Jack is good at bringing this up, and it’s so important. You’re going to make mistakes and quit getting mad at yourself or giving up for those mistakes. This is a thing that I see too often. “I can’t do it. This mailer didn’t work.” There are all kinds of excuses. They’re using their mistakes as an excuse that it doesn’t work, they can’t do it, it’s too hard, whatever. You have to plan for it. It’s going to happen. That’s part of all of this. Come on. If you have a child, please tell me, if you think you parented your child perfectly and didn’t make a mistake until now, I would love to talk to you.

I would like to see what’s wrong with you if you think that.

 “Everything comes easy to me.” You can’t do anything in life without making mistakes. Your relationships, your children, your businesses, even if you have a boss. “I keep screwing up in these meetings. I keep trying to talk and bring good ideas in.” You learn and you grow from that. This is no different. Just because you have us doesn’t mean it’s going to be 100% smooth sailing. I’ll tell you right now, it’s a lot better having us in an education, peers, and people to go and to call upon, because you’re going to learn faster.

By the way, the more you immerse yourself and watch us all make mistakes, like if you live in Discord like most of us do, watching people do this stuff and screw things up. You’re going to go, “I already know.” I am sure there are 500 people right now in Discord listening to Joseph’s conversation about churches, and they just learned.

That’s a great example. Get yourself a notepad and put a pen to it, and start writing down in chronological order all the stuff that you’ve tried. All of it. Start in grade school. “Tried to kiss a girl, got rejected, failed at that.”

I need more than one notepad.

Effort Over Perfection

“I’m good at math. Math is always easy for me. I enjoy it. I still do it for fun sometimes. I am great at Sudoku. I didn’t go to college. I made it to the second semester. I gave up. I didn’t like it, and it didn’t like me. I was not good at it.” Go through all of that, every single thing. “I picked up a guitar and I was amazing in two weeks. I still play. I’m in a band.” You’re going to do stuff that you’re good at, and there’s stuff that you’re not good at because this, like, everything, comes down to how much effort you’re going to put into it. I happen to be good at it. That’s just what happened. I would never have known that unless I tried. There are a lot of things I tried, business and personal, that didn’t work out that way.

I bought a classic car dealership and I made a bunch of money in the first few months on it, and then got a little cocky and crazy and lost my ass because I want to keep every car. It’s just not the right business for me. I have a ton of stories like that. What you can expect as a brand-new land investor is what has happened to you in the past with your successes. If they’re research-based and you like the internet and you love real estate, maybe you’re in real estate in a different capacity, or an agent or something like that, and you’re good at it, you’re going to smash it here. You’re going to smash it in this business.

If you think it’s going to be easy, and let’s say you’ve failed at every single thing you’ve ever done, what do you think might happen here? We have amazing people in this group. I’m going to end this on a positive note. The people who join Land Academy and choose to stay are amazing. They are not blowing smoke or trying to sell anything. They’re a very special type of people. They’re a lot like Jill and me, and I’m not saying that we’re special. I’m just saying we’re a unique group together.

We are special. I’ll say it.

Maybe not in a positive way. In a disturbing way.

We are special. Take that however you want. I think in a positive way.

Join us for the next episode, where we talk about why land investment is the most efficient way to quit your job. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill. Information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.