This is episode number 2232, and we have an interview with longtime successful Land Academy member, Michelle Bridger. I would love to ask the first question. How are you?

I’m great. I’m so glad to be here. It’s so good to see you guys.

This is maybe your fourth or fifth time on the show, I think. Not sure.

Not sure, but I’m glad to be here.

You seem to have this somewhat unhealthy knack and interest in solving legal problems that are associated with other people’s land transactions. Where did that come from?

Tenacity In Solving Legal Puzzles

I guess I love puzzles. I am tenacious, and I’m not going to give up. The last two ones have been a bear to untangle, but it’s worth wrestling that bear to the ground and drawing out lots of profit. It’s been all good.

Casting pride aside, can you describe what happened and how you championed those deals?

The first one was two sisters, and one of their daughters owned it, and they had owned it since 1994. I bought it from them, and we went to close, and then there was a break in the chain of title from 1928. That escrow company dropped it. They said, “There’s a break in the chain of title.” They stopped communicating with us. They didn’t try to solve it, didn’t do anything with it. The next step was a quiet title. I handed the ball back to the sellers, which I wouldn’t necessarily do now, because they didn’t know what to do, and they sat there. A colleague of mine, thankfully, said, “No, go after it. Help them solve it.”

I did a consult with another real estate attorney, and he said, “This is so easy. It’s so easy. This was breaking chain of title 100 years ago. You don’t even need to do quiet title. We’ll close it for you in two weeks,” and so he did. Beautiful 27-acre property with 1,600 glorious feet of road frontage, paved road frontage, and a great property. I bought it and it perked because it was known not to perk well, and started a survey on it, and then started to dial for builders. I got a builder. The builder came from Facebook Marketplace. I didn’t even have a realtor involved, and I closed on it. I am still all smiles, my biggest deal ever. It was cool. I’m so glad.

Do you mind sharing the buy-for, sub-for, and all that?

I bought it for $42,000. I bought it for $40,000, about $1,600-ish in closing costs. It cost me $3,200 to do the perc testing and get four perc sites off of that property. I had to pay $4,000 for the survey. All in, I know that the profit was $169,000, by the time I was all in, and my sale price, so it’s $169,000 in profit. Incredible. The sale price was $220,000.

Do you think you sold it too fast, too cheaply?

The trajectory of money is important. If I only got 80% of the deal and I could have sold it for $250,000, the money is going to keep moving in that trajectory. It is important to me if I didn’t scrap the last 20% off well. It was an easy deal. It was easy to deal with the seller, and I’m glad to have it sold and move on to the next.

Your buyer is happy. That’s the point. You want them to feel good that they got a good deal, too.

You have that unofficial title of Facebook Marketplace Land Seller Queen.

Can we back up a little bit? For anyone who doesn’t know you, Michelle, give us a little bit of your history, and then I want to dive into my big stuff now, which is that you have got this Facebook Marketplace licked. We’ll get back to that. A few minutes about your background, please.

I had already owned another business, but had wanted to have a Plan B. I went into real estate. I was taught in a program how to buy inexpensive land and sell it on terms. I sold a boatload of those, and I didn’t even know what a deed was when I first started. I didn’t know anything. That program told me the basics. I was grateful for that. After a while, it was very difficult to scale, and I was looking for a Plan B on scaling, because I still loved land.

I came across Land Academy, and I’ve been doing the Land Academy way, and I’m no longer doing property on terms. I’ve been selling lots of land at the Land Academy way. I’m grateful. 2025 has been so great because 2024 was amazing, my highest revenue ever, but I wanted a lot more profit, and in 2025, I’ve been able to 2.5X my profit. That was my goal. More profit. It’s been a great year so far. I’ve got to keep it going. I’m pleased with how my profit has come up per property.

What’s your experience been with Facebook Marketplace? You seem to have a ton of success there.

Strategic Use Of Facebook Marketplace For Sales

I do have a marketing background, so I can’t say I’m no expert, but it’s just getting out there and doing it, so having the pictures be clear, having a clear call to action. This is Marketplace. I don’t boost them ever. That’s my expert opinion. I am an expert on Facebook Marketplace. It’s a waste of time to boost it. I have a clear call to action at the top. We put a clear call to action at the bottom, “Message me now.” I try and give all the details of the property, so we’re getting as few things from people as possible. We do answer the message. I do have messages. I do have a VA. She’s in the Philippines, and she does answer it.

She uses software to come into the computer, and we try and stay on top of those because Facebook is keeping track in their algorithm, whether answering them or not answering them. If you’re not getting any traction on your Facebook account, then try someone else’s account, like your spouse’s or your daughter’s, or whatever. Try a different account. I’m not very active on Facebook in general, but I guess enough that Facebook rewards me.

I have sold probably close to 200 properties on Facebook Marketplace. That is a lot of properties. I’ve done most of those on desert squares and properties on terms. It’s also amazing that I’ve been able to post properties. One was three adjoining parcels, and I bought them all for $21,000, and I sold them all for $77,000. That was in the Marketplace.

This last deal that I did, 27 acres to sell for $220,000, the builder that bought that came from Facebook Marketplace. He saw my ad, and it came from that. One thing you want to be careful of is not putting animals in your photos. No dogs, no horses, because Facebook will think that you’re trying to sell those because it’s the bots that are reading your ad, and you can lose your account that way. Don’t talk about animals, don’t talk about fishing. That is a big red flag for Facebook Marketplace.

You can put guns in there.

No. You’ll lose your account. That’s the big red flag. Don’t do that. The bots will not like you. It’s easy to lose your account. We’ll be in Facebook jail forever. I’ve lost my account before. Eventually, after months, thankfully, I got it back because it’s worth a lot of money to me. I’ve made a lot of money from Facebook Marketplace.

At the back of my mind, I’m going to say what everyone else is thinking. Michelle, can you sell a property for me on your Facebook Marketplace account and split the profit with me?

It would have to be well worth it because of the logistics of having to monitor and stuff. I don’t know. I’m game if it’s worth it, but hopefully not.

How about a truck with a camper on the back? Can I roll that in there, please? I’ve got one right now. That’d be great. I love it. This is amazing. For me, a lot of it is how you’re selling because that’s clearly where you shine. You shine in every part of your business, but the selling part is what a lot of people are struggling with right now. You are like, “I got this.” One of the things that I thought I always had to do, correct me if I’m wrong, is also to put the property in groups and things like that. Let’s say it’s in Nashville. I might put it into a Nashville Facebook group or something. Is that important, do you think?

I’ve never done that. I think I probably did it at first, and then it was a complete waste of time. We did talk about that in Discord. Someone said that they had a property in a ski area. They posted in that area, and it worked well for them. I also have seen where people will take what looks like not an investor type of ad, like all the marketing, all the emojis. They took an ad that sounded like an everyday person who lived locally and said, “I’ve got to sell.” They seem to get more attention than this very professional-looking ad. I’m trying to do less professionally looking ads, and everyday Joe gets to sell.

I’m not saying groups don’t work, it’s I personally haven’t seen them work. If you have a local group that you’re posting in and you have a niche area, I’d give it a try. Everything is a test, so I always see it. If we don’t get any action, the headline is going to change. I would also make it mobile-friendly because people are looking on their phones. If you have this long headline and you don’t get to the point until the end, they’ve missed it entirely. Get to the point of the headline right away, and if it doesn’t work, try another headline. Try a different image, try a different city. I watch the clicks and see if it is getting traction now.

There’s something mystical about off-market property, and that has to play into what you’re doing because these are off-market properties that you’re selling, like legit off-market.

It’s non-MLS, not an agent.

I think there is something very legit about that. If you feel like you’re buying from the buddy down the street, or everyday Joe down the street, if you feel like you’re an investor who has already taken the squeeze out of it, the juice out of it, or you’re like, “A realtor is involved. Can I even talk the lingo?” You can talk with your buddy who is saying, “I can’t afford this anymore. I’ve got to let it go because I’ve got to pay my tax bill,” whatever. I think that’s a much more approachable conversation and a way to approach it.

What are you doing differently in 2025 to hit those goals? Is it buy for more, sell for more? Has your volume changed at all?

Focusing On Niche Markets & Higher Profit Margins

My volume is a little bit lower, and the properties that I have with bigger profits were also being done at the beginning of the year. They were bought at the beginning of the year. It naturally follows that now they’re selling. I am also very much pickier than I’ve ever been about the deals that I’ll do, and willing to spend more to get the bigger deals. I’m being much more careful about what I mail so that I’m not mailing for lower dollars.

I’m starting with bigger acreages in my mail. If I look and see that the 1, 2, and 3-acre parcels are selling for $25,000, that doesn’t give me enough margin. Now I’ll mail for starting at maybe 10 acres or 5 acres, but being careful not to mail to too small acreage parcels, so that I’m going for the bigger. I’m not rejecting it. I’m not wasting my mail. Those are some of the things.

You already have, in my mind, serious niches on both the buy side and the sell side, and I don’t know if they’re intentional. You’ve carved yourself into solving some legal problems. I can’t count the number of legal issues that we pass on. Deals come in, there are legal issues, and we pass on them because we don’t want to deal with them.

Until now.

On the buy side. We’re going to send those to you, and we’ll figure something out. On the sell side, you’ve conquered seemingly Facebook Marketplace, even for higher-end properties. I always saw Facebook as a desert square type place to liquidate property, but you’ve taken it beyond that. Are you thinking in niches, or do you just fall back into it?

I think it’s thinking more in niches. One thing about Facebook Marketplace, like the property that was four adjoining parcels, that one, I couldn’t find a realtor that I wanted. I thought, “I’m at least going to put this up here until I find a realtor.” I had sold it by the time I found a realtor. Sometimes, when the realtor isn’t getting it moved, I’ll have it up there, and I’ll feed her some leads. My VA will feed her the leads that come through it to try and get more traction on it. I am thinking more in niches. I have my favorite areas. I have realtors that I like to work with. I already have title companies that I like to work with, so I’m digging in harder on those areas that I love.

How long did it take you to get where you are? When did you start with the other program? That’s what everybody who’s reading is thinking. “I want to be Michelle. How long does it take?”

January 2021 is when I started in land and learning property on terms. April of 2023 was when I started with Land Academy. I’ve been doing it the Land Academy way since April of 2023. That’s when I went through Career Path for the first time with you guys. It was either April or May that I went through it. I love programs with accountability because otherwise, I might still be saying, “That land thing looked good four years ago when I looked at it,” but high accountability gets me going. Just like Career Path, I would still be saying, “That mailer thing that Jack was talking about, I wish I had done that,” and I did. Career Path got me going to have that high accountability to get me in gear to get it done your way, and it’s been profitable.

You manage your own accountability very effectively. What’s the secret there?

The Power Of Consistency & Personal Involvement

In terms of consistency, what I do is every weekday morning, from 5:30 AM to 8:00 AM, I work on data. Whether it’s pricing a mailer, requesting whatever it may be, it has to do with data. I don’t stray from that. There’s always something about a mailer that is addressed during those times. If I waited to work on a mailer until mid-afternoon, it wouldn’t happen because the day takes over. Being consistent, always having that time block, that tenacity on the data has helped me to be consistent and be successful.

Consistency comes from tenacity and time-blocking. Showing up for the same task, at the same time, every day is what drives success. Share on X

I do a version of the same thing at the same time every day.

I do not.

If you answered the phone the same way every time, this would never work.

Could you imagine if my phone hours are 5:30, 8:30? “Just call me then. That’s the only time I’m going to answer the phone.” It won’t work like that. I’m available evenings and weekends. I’ll answer the phone. I’ll step out of whatever we’re doing and answer the phone.

I’m not going to leave the bar to take a phone call about land.

I do. That’s good. We have different roles. Who fills that for you? I don’t know. Do you answer the phones too, or are you using somebody else or a service?

I tried a service and it was a horrid failure. It wasn’t PATLive, it was another company. They even admitted that they did such a horrible job. I fired them. I never went back to using another service. I have a US-based VA that’s worked for me for ten years, has the cheeriest voice, and does an amazing job on the phone. She takes calls on certain days at certain times, but it’s me. It’s still me taking the phone calls and building the rapport. I had a great 30 to 40-minute call with someone and built lots of rapport with her, and she has three big properties to sell. It’s time-consuming, but I also want to be the one building the rapport and building that relationship as quickly as I possibly can.

The Advantage Of Being “In Your Business”

That’s so important. There are a lot of people who are trying to outsource some things like that. I don’t think they should. You’re great at it, too. I’m like you, I want to know that. I want to hear what’s going on. I want to know if anybody has any hesitation during the deal. If my sellers have a problem with something, they’re going to call me, and then I’m going to be the first to know. I’ll know them before anybody, and I’ll say, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll call title, I’ll move this, I’ll get the form updated,” whatever it is. That way, I make sure it gets done.

It’s a little bit of extra work, but who cares? They don’t have to be hour-long phone calls. It could be 5 minutes here and 3 minutes there. We closed the deal on the acquisition side, where I had conversations with effectively the title company, and it was short conversations like, “I still need this. Did you get that?” That’s all it needs to be. People don’t want to do it.

What I hear is that both of you or in your business, smashing it every day. I mean, on the phone. For a long time, we’ve said PATLive should answer your phone. I do think that during office hours, off hours that that needs to happen.

Maybe you have a day job and you can’t do it.

I think that. We went through the same transaction that Jill is talking about, and the people who were involved answered the phone every single time we called.

Every one of them, you’re right.

When we were done with the deal, I told all of them. After sending all of them gift baskets, I said, “I’ve never experienced a transaction like this,” and they said, “Yeah.” They very nicely said, “We get that a lot.” It’s all it is.

Being there.

This lady in her 80s called me and she said, “I was expecting an answering machine.” “No, it’s me. It’s not AI. I am so happy to talk to you. I’m so glad you called.” Yeah, sometimes it’s time-consuming. I’ve had a lot of calls this week, but you know what? I want to be the face of my business, and I want to be the one building rapport with them. At some point, maybe I’ll outsource it more than it is, but it’s still me.

What would happen, Jill, if we launched a campaign here at Land Academy and said, “You’re either going to work in this business or you’re not. Here are glaring examples of people like Michelle and you and all of us who work in our businesses and make a ton of money?” What would happen? Instead of sending this message like the rest of the internet sends, this is easy.

You can do it part-time. I’m not saying you can’t do that if you’re a nutcase Type A personality, 22 years old, because I think you might have enough energy and figure that out. I do think that’s the real truth. You have to work these deals, and you have to not give up. I’ve never heard of a 100-year chain and title breaking a deal.

How can we go back that far? Was it in a state that starts with an O? I don’t think it was.

No, it wasn’t.

Okay, good because that’s the only one I can think of. I can think of one that goes back that far, but most states are like 30, 35 years. Who cares about 19 or 20-something?

The funny part about that was that I called the second attorney to have a consultation with him. He said, “That’s my brother-in-law. Ignore him. I’ll take care of it.”

“I’m always cleaning up his mess.”

There have been a lot of hunting accidents between brothers-in-law. Since we’re on career secrets. Women, what does it take, both of you? You’re clearly both incredibly successful. To all the women out there, what’s your 2, 3, 4 sentence comment on what it takes, or is it any different than a man?

It’s very different.

I’ll shut up after this. Do you have an advantage as a woman in this industry?

Sometimes, I think. Don’t you?

Risk Tolerance, Grit, & Tenacity As Core Traits

I’m not sure. I would say that I have a fairly high risk tolerance, and so it’s fearsome because I’m single. I’m not married. The risk is on me. It’s me. No one has my back, but I have a fairly high-risk tolerance, and I grit my teeth and I do it. That’s helped me to do deals and move into bigger deals. It is grit and tenacity, and prayer that got me through.

What helps close deals and level up is simple: grit, tenacity, and a lot of prayer. Share on X

That’s a whole career here on solving what’s formerly known as unsolvable legal issues surrounding transfers of real estate. Those two properties in all of La Jolla that everybody drives by.

Everybody thinks it can fall.

One of them was a deed restriction that you got removed, which I don’t even know was possible. Do you want to tell that story? Can you tell that story, please?

What happened was the property was owned by a college, and a foundation had donated it to the college 40, 45 years ago, but it had 16 deed restrictions on it. It was listed for four years, but I had my eye on that listing, and it was a terrible listing. No description, three grainy images from the GIS. It was awful. I had a hard time getting ahold of the realtor. Finally, I get ahold of him. He almost yells at me and he says, “Go do your own due diligence.” Okay, I will. I went up through the chain of command in the college and found out who actually do I actually talk to. She said, “Please bring us an offer. We don’t want to own real estate. That’s not what we do. We’d love to sell it.”

I had realtors go out to it. They loved it. They were land specialists. They said yes. Even with the deed restrictions, it’s doable. It’s very good. I made an offer. It was listed for $228,000. I offered $85,000. The college immediately said yes. Funny thing was, their realtor never even came back and told us they’d accepted it. I had to call the college and say, “I haven’t heard from you guys. What’s going on?” She said, “Didn’t my realtor tell you? We accepted it.” “No, he didn’t.”

How was he doing business?

I had a good real estate attorney, and she was local to the area, and she spent a lot of time on it. There was a deed in 2017 that limited some of the restrictions. I’m not even sure why that deed was in place, but it wasn’t the acting deed. She was able to get the boards of both the foundation that donated and the board of the college to vote to accept the deed with fewer restrictions. Also, because the restrictions were 30 years old, even older than that, they removed all of them except for three. It has to be single-family. It can’t be mobiles, and it can’t be multifamily.

Other than that, that’s no big deal. It does fall under the ETJ rules of the city. Not more than 20% of it can be developed. Still, it’s a 24-acre property. That still gives you plenty of land. It’s that your house and your barn can’t take up more than that. It can’t be a commercial pig farm or something like that. That was a big win to get those restrictions removed. Now it’s under contract, and we’ll see what happens. I dialed for builders. As soon as it was closed, I started to dial for single-family custom builders and got one on the phone. He said, “Yeah, I’m interested.”

You went out and got your own. That’s what needs to happen.

You have to show up and work these deals. That’s a lot of it.

This is not women’s stuff. This is crazy, intelligent, tenacious stuff.

That’s it. I think I have that too. I’m a dog with a bone. I’m not letting it go. I’m going to get this done. I think you’re the same way, too, Michelle. I don’t have any fear. I don’t care who I need to call or what I have to do. I’ll call the president of fill in the blank. We’ll do it.

I’m willing to feel the fear and do it anyway. Jill, you are gutsier than I am, for sure.

I will vouch for that. She’s fearless about any of this stuff. It’s amazing. Michelle, it was a pleasure talking to you. We both have schedules, but let’s schedule another time. I’m going to ask everybody if you have questions for Michelle, to send them to us. We’ll be sure and ask her.

That would be fun.

Send them to Support@LandAcademy.com.

Q&A with Michelle Bridger.

I think we should do it if you’re up for it, Michelle.

I am. I’d love that. Very good.

Thanks so much. Have a great week.

Thanks.