How To Choose The Best County For Land Mailers

This is episode number 2137. In this episode, Jill and I are talking about what makes a great county for land mailers and what doesn’t. The famous question is, “Where should I send mail?” It’s all data-driven. We have the tools all set up for you to decide what’s best for you. It’s land research week and with a little side dish of emotions and feelings.

Where you send mail is a huge topic. It’s one of the top five questions that we got. It’s a valid, heartfelt question. It’s one of those grasshopper things. You already probably know where to send mail, and we’ll talk about that in a second. 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.

Ben wrote, “I’m getting ready to send out my first mailer, and I’ve narrowed down several counties in Tennessee. I started trolling slash fishing around there since I live in the area. Does anyone have any red flags with Tennessee? I know the influx to Nashville has been massive in the last few years, so I’m not sure if that makes this type of thing less successful since everyone might think their land is golden now. I know someone said Georgia instituted some new no mailing solicitation laws but I don’t know of any in Tennessee. Thanks.” One of our members piped in here, which is great. I saw some of this and there are a lot more comments showing like, “You got to read this. This debunks that. Don’t believe this.”

Tennessee’s New Land Mailing Restrictions

Sweet Chris wrote, “In 2023, Tennessee passed a law or a bill that limits the amount of time a property owner can be contacted within a calendar year by a person making an unsolicited offer to purchase their property. In short, a property owner can file a complaint against you if you are found in violation. You could be assessed a $1,500 penalty for violations. Here’s a link. People still mail there. If it makes sense to you to target areas in Tennessee, be sure you work within the rules.” We’re already right there. If there’s a bill that limits the amount of time you can be contacted within a calendar year by a person for an offer, I’m pretty sure the limited time is more than one.

Real estate investing isn't about emotions—it's about making data-driven decisions that work. Share on X

I agree with you, but you’re putting yourself into a situation of explanation. Why would a lobby pass like this? Let’s philosophically stick a few steps back from the whiteboard.

Abused. People are getting hit over and over again by the same people.

There’s no way you could know this if you’re new in this business but the state of Tennessee gets a lot of mail. Why? It’s because it passes the Red Green Yellow Test, which we’re about to talk about in a second here.

Do you know what my answer is?

Go ahead.

I read it, make my determination, and then do what I feel is best. It’s like what Chris said here too. I agree with Chris.

In a 55-mile-an-hour speed zone, some people drive 55 and some people drive 65. It’s the same situation here.

Do we mail it, leaving it at that?

We have done a lot of deals in Tennessee. Does that mean it’s a great place to do deals?

You’re going to talk about that. Thank you.

Our topic is what makes a great county for land mailers and what doesn’t. There are 150 million-plus pieces of real estate in this country. Separate APNs. I’ll start from the beginning and be very brief about this. Back in the day, I could send out 500 letters and buy 4 properties. No one ever was sending any mail. There was a ton of property all over the country. The perceived value of it was so low that a real estate agent wouldn’t even list it. It’s not worth their time. There was no real way for a regular person, buyer, or seller to find the property. This is way before Google Earth and all of that.

We bought a lot of real estate and sold a lot. Jill and I have done more than 16,000 transactions because of this. That’s not the case anymore. It’s largely because the tools that are available like Google Earth, ParcelFact, and all the tools out there to find property, assess it, and decide whether or not it’s undervalued, overvalued, or any of that are so prevalent and usable and inexpensive that it’s made our lives easy.

The consequence of that is that there are a lot of places where property owners have received a ton of mail. Tennessee is one of those places. You have to decide after you look at the data. The way that we do that is to find ZIP codes that meet our financial criteria. Jill calls it fishing. We used to call it trolling for no obvious reasons anymore.

Look at it. If you think it’s a good place to send mail, assess it and test it using some version of the Red Green Yellow Test, which we talk about in chapters 2 and 3 in great detail in Land Academy. This is key. This is a special sauce. It was mentioned in the question here by Ben. It’s in his backyard. If you clear your mind and think about where you think there might be sellers and what their real estate looks like to you, it will pop right into your head. Does Anchorage, Alaska pop into your head? No. I’ve never been to Anchorage. Most of you haven’t. It could be a good way to send. If we did send mail to Anchorage, we would do deals only because we’ve done so many deals and we have a lot of experience.

If you clear your mind and think about where sellers might be and what their real estate looks like to you, the answer will come to you immediately. Share on X

Where you live, there are some places where you’re like, “What’s going on out there with all that property? I remember my aunt buying some property out there and she did well. Let’s take a look at that.” That’s the kind of stuff in this day and age that you need to think about and then run the Red Green Yellow Test and all the things that we do.

There are a lot of people that have taken the Land Academy model. Most or almost all of them were former Land Academy members and then went out and created their own Land Academy. They teach it but they don’t teach it right. They say that they’re implementing data-driven decisions and things like that but they’re not. The result of that is a ton of mail has been sent out.

One of the things you need to do is take a look at how you do this. Ben started down that path here, asking questions about Tennessee. Find out how much mail has been sent there. Tennessee and North Carolina, those two places specifically, have received a lot of mail because they passed a Red Green Yellow Test so well. Does it mean you can’t do deals there? No. In Southern California, if you try to send a mailer out to buy a house, they have received and received. The owners receive so much mail they’ve been desensitized to responding to it. Look in your backyard.

Do you know what I like doing too? For me, one of the best things that you have brought to this community of investors is you have always said, “I’m not going to tell you where to send mail. I’m going to tell you what triggers I look for. I’m going to tell you what made us successful. I’m going to help you go out and pick your county. These are the things that we do.” I still come back to that. I did a thing in February 2025 with the Land Academy Ladies group where I slowed it all down. I took your fishing exercise and was like, “Let’s talk about this here.”

Finding The Right Zip Codes For Land Investment

It started with the equity planner. How much money do you want to make a year? How much money does that mean each month? How many deals do you want to do? Now that we have the answer to that, we can say we need to go and fish for deals that will make me this much money per deal. I need to know what to fill into Zillow or whatever thing I’m using. I need to look for properties that are selling in this range because I know how to buy them in this thing. I’m going to buy them for this to sell them for that.” You start rolling around the country. For me, that’s the best thing here.

I identify pockets and things like, “I never would’ve thought of upstate New York,” or who knows what. I’m like, “I never would’ve thought of Minnesota like this or this part of Utah,” or whatever it is. You learn based on you, and you have us to ask the questions. You’re like, “I’m thinking this is something that makes sense. Look at these properties. It’s checking my boxes. It fills in what I need to do financially.” This is what I tell everybody. You should have 5 or 10 counties, and then you come up for air and go, “I need to plug them in the Red Yellow Green Test and see what’s going on.” It’s going to be pretty much black and white, “This, yes. This, no,” and then you mail away.

When choosing where to send land mailers, look in your backyard first. You probably already know which areas have real estate activity worth exploring. Share on X

It’s what Jill said. I’ll end the topic on this. The first conversation that you have with the seller will make all the difference in whether or not you buy real estate. I’ll give you an example. Jill and I are coming up on the tail end of an 8,000-unit mailer in an area that we mailed because we spent a lot of time there over the summer. It’s not an area that I would probably have mailed. We’re ending up doing a couple of deals there, good ones.

The Personal Touch That Helps Close More Deals

We sent mail, and when these people called back, some of them were not so happy about getting the letter. Jill is able to have a very detailed, intelligent neighbor-like discussion with them. I listen to her do this all the time. It’s maybe 30 seconds of, “What the heck is this onto? Are you going to mail it this week?” This business has come full circle since 1955. We were doing 50 deals a week. We still do a very high volume and high-profit margin deal. What I’m seeing is old-school on the phone talking to people about their lives and whether or not they want to sell their land. After the first conversation, they trust her.

How To Improve Response Rates On Land Mailers

My point is whatever place that you identify to send mail, your neighborly followthrough makes all the difference in the world. There are a lot of new people coming into this business because of what I said earlier that believe that this is a different version of day trading, and it’s not. There’s a huge personal element. Join us when Jill and I talk about making land investment decisions based on data versus feelings. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.