Mark Podolsky: The Land Geek
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What if you had passive income through investing in real estate and never had to worry about renters, renovations, rehabs, and rodents? Meet Mark Podolsky! After working as an investment banker and being completely miserable every weekend dreading going back to work on Monday, he was able to replace his income & quit his job in 18 months by investing in raw land. Author of "Dirt Rich", Mark has completed over 5,500 transactions and lives a life of time and financial freedom that so many strive for. He's also host of the "Land Geek Podcast" and "The Art of Passive Income" Podcast.
In this episode, hosted by Mike Swenson, we discussed:
- Mark started out as an investment banker and did not like it at all. Instead of the Sunday blues, he had the Friday blues - realizing he only had 2 days off before he had to go back to work for another week
- Someone talked to him about investing in land, so he decided to give it a try. He followed the person and that was the start of his success.
- Mark discussed his financial freedom and how he started his career.
- Mark created a system where its turn’s his millions of dollars loss to a future gain.
- Marks Time Freedom - Mondays and Fridays are his terminal days (pretending his last days on earth). He's often being a guest on podcasts, meditating, being with nature, he loves reading. Tuesdays he’s doing interviews for his own podcast and works the other 2 days
- His mission in life is to help other people to get out in economic dependency.
- People can learn more about him via thelandgeek.com.
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro and overview on Mark’s career.
01:22 Talking about how Mark started investing in land properties.
09:34 Discussion about Mark’s financial freedom.
14:54 Mark’s time structure.
17:57 How Mark structures his passive income.
20:08 Talking about a few courses that he made.
28:56 How people can learn more about Mark.
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Full transcript here:
Mike Swenson
Welcome to The Rel Freedom podcast where we inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host, Mike Swenson. Let's get some real freedom together.
Mike Swenson
Hello, and welcome everybody to another episode of The Rel Freedom Podcast and today we're going to talk about land. And what I love about our guest Mark Podolsky here is, you know, what is what are the things that somebody who invests in rental properties might be concerned about, and I've heard it two ways for you. We've got tenants, termites, and toilets. And we've got renters renovations, rehabs and rodents. And Mark doesn't have to deal with any of that. So Mark is the land geek. And he's widely considered to be the country's most trusted and foremost authority and buying and selling raw, undeveloped land. And so you're going to share your journey of how you've done that how you've built wealth, how you've made a career out of it, and completed over 5500 transactions through that you are also the author of dirt rich, and so you are the land geek. It's it's the name says it all. So welcome Mark to the podcast. And why don't you just share a little bit more about you.
Mark Podolsky
Mike Swenson, thank you so much for having me. So if we rewind the tape to 2000, I was a miserable micromanage 45 minute commute to work and back investment banker specializing in mergers and acquisitions with private equity groups. And Mike, it got so bad for me. I didn't get the Sunday blues, anticipating Monday coming around. I didn't get the Friday blues, anticipating the weekend going by really fast, and having to be back to work on Monday. So my firm hires this guy. And he's telling me that as a side hustle, he's buying up raw land, pennies on the dollar. He's flipping them online. And he's making a 300% return on his investment. And I'm like, 300%, like, I'm looking at companies all day long. A great company. Great. Yeah, has 15% EBIT margins, were free cash flow, average companies, 10%. And I'm looking at companies all day long, less than 10%. So I don't believe him. So I go to New Mexico with him to a tax deed auction.
Mark Podolsky
And I do exactly what he tells me to do. And I got three grand, by the way, saved up for car repairs. So I use that. And I buy 10 Half Acre parcels and average price of $300 each. I flipped them online. And they all sell for an average price of $1,200. Each 3% have worked. So I took all that money. And it's another auction. I'm from Arizona. And there's no one in the room. It's 2000. I'm buying up lots of acreage for nothing. And over a period of time. I sold all that property. And I made over $90,000 cash. So I go to my wife, I'm like, Honey, I'm going to quit my job and become a full time land investor. And she's pregnant. She's like, Absolutely not. So I said, okay, okay. So it took me about 18 months for the land investing income to exceed the investment banking income, and then I quit. I've been doing it full time ever since. Absolutely love it.
Mike Swenson
So talk a little bit because you you've got a great little video on your YouTube channel, where you explain how this works. So for people that are wondering, okay, obviously, how do I get a 300% turn, you know, return? What's the Cliff Notes version on kind of how that process works?
Mark Podolsky
Okay, so Mike, you're in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And I'm going to assume that you own 10 acres of raw land in Texas. And you owe $200 back taxes. Essentially, you're advertising two important things be number one, you have no emotional attachment, that roadmap. And number two, you're financially distressed in some weird way. Because real pay for things, we don't value them in the same way, and you haven't paid your property taxes. As a result kind of treasurer, keep sending notices saying Mike, don't pay your taxes. We're gonna auction off your properties with a tax deed or tax lien investor. So all I'm going to do is look at the comparable sales on your 10 acre parcel. I'm going to take the lowest comparable sale, I'm gonna divide by four. That's gonna give me what Warren Buffett's call a 300% margin of safety. So I'm gonna send you an actual offer for the property. And let's say that the lowest comps, 10 grand, I'll send you an offer for $2,500 Right now, you accept it because for you $2,500 is better than nothing.
Mark Podolsky
Now, in reality, three to 5% of people accept my quote unquote, top dollar offer. But now that you've accepted it, I have to go through due diligence or this in depth research. Number one, do you still own the property? Number two, our back taxes only $200. Number three, has there been any breaks in the chain of title? Number four? Are there any liens or encumbrances? What are the restrictions? What's the roads like? Right? So I'm gonna outsource all this to my team, the Philippines, it's going to cost about 11 bucks. And they're connected to an American Title Company. And they're going to fill out my property checklists. They're giving me the GIS map, plat map, aerial maps, pictures, everything I need for my marketing package for my next buyer. Now, we'll assume everything checks out. I buy tea from you, for $2,300 I pay a few $100 back taxes. I'm all in for $2,500 Okay, now, I'm going to sell it 30 days or less. I'm gonna make a cash flow like a rental home. So I've got a built in best buyer. Yes, this
Mike Swenson
the person next door.
Mark Podolsky
You got it, the neighbors, right. I'm gonna set up my neighbor letter saying, here's your opportunity. Protect your privacy. Protect your views. Know your neighbor. Now if the neighbors pass where am I going to go?
Mike Swenson
The neighbor on the other side
Mark Podolsky
know that all the neighbors know the market market. Okay, so the general market I'm going to go to my buyers list. my buyers list doesn't buy. I'm going to go to Craigslist. I'm gonna go to Facebook Buy Sell groups. Is the Facebook or meta either way by so face still Facebook for now. Yeah, Facebook, meta, whatever. I'll go to the Buy Sell groups marketplace.
Mike Swenson
For the people that are watching this podcast 10 years in the future that like what's Facebook, so we will reference meta, meta is this. This is evergreen content. It's gonna live for years and years and years. And in the year 2040. Somebody's gonna come back and watch this. And so we got to we have to reference meta,
Mark Podolsky
Exactly. They're like, what was this real human beings? They weren't those avatars? Yeah. So. So now, if I if I can't sell on Facebook, I'll go to the lands, landmoto.com, land and farm.com, landsofamerica.com. Landflip.com hud.com. These are platforms where people buy and sell raw land every day. Now the magic happens in my pricing, I'm going to make an irresistible, you can control 10 acres of raw land for only $2,500 as a down payment. So I'm gonna try to get my money out on the down. I might get sick, I might go 610 months out. And then I'm making a car payment, let's say for 49 A month 9% interest over the next 84 months. So it's a one time sale. I get my money out on the down Miko, 610 months out. Then we get for 49 a month. Every single month for the next 84 months. No renters. No rehabs, no narrations, no rodents. And because I'm not dealing with the tenant, I'm exempt from Dodd Frank RESPA. And the SAFE Act, all this owners real estate legislation. So the game we play is can create enough of these land notes where a passive income now exceeds our fixed expenses. And we're working because we want to not because we have to.
Mike Swenson
So that's the kind of the quick and easy version. Now, you know, a few questions that come up are, how do you find these? And then if you're saying that three to 5% of the people are accepting them, are you holding out where you're only doing these deals at the you know, at the kind of the 25%? Or are you also doing some deals where it's more than that? And what are kind of some of the numbers of you know, only three, three to 5% except the 25%. But what are the other numbers of people that accept stuff higher than that?
Mark Podolsky
Right. Okay, so let's first talk about the market. Right? I'm gonna pick on you, Mike, because let's face it, nobody wakes up and thinks themselves. Boy, let's roll in and Minnesota today, unless you live in Minnesota, right. So we want the biggest buyer pool. So we're going to focus on Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, California, Texas, and Florida. So the sunshine states. Yep, a little bit, the northwest. This is gonna be our biggest buyer pool. And we have tons and tons of inexpensive raw land. Now, if only if less than 3% of the market except by my offer. I know I came in too low. But if over 5% accepted. I came in too high. And I want to retread so I'm sticking to this very tight metric. You're always in that three to five window then right because we make our money on the buy. I'm never gonna overpay.
Mike Swenson
So then how how do we find these $10,000 or 10 acre tracts of land? How are we finding those and how are we finding the back taxes?
Mark Podolsky
Right? So we're gonna go to the county. We're gonna go to the county so that we can get all our county [email protected] And then we're doing our company research. We want to go where we know definitively deals are being done. So we might go to a site like land moto.com and see where our lives investors buying property. We'll start our research there. And then we'll narrow down which counties do we like? What's our budget? Right? I mean, I start with $3,000. I have friends who have sort of $500. But you know, if you've got a $20,000 budget, if you want to go for higher end properties, so it just depends on you. So that's where you really want to start. And he don't want to, you know, like, be in Minnesota, and think, Oh, well, it's my backyard. I'm gonna make offers in Minnesota. Unless you know, definitively, deals are being done there.
Mike Swenson
So when you got started, did you have I mean, you had your buddy, how much did he kind of he or she coach coach you through this process? Or did
Mark Podolsky
Honestly, it was like the blind lead the blind, he was like, a month ahead of me. Oh, we neither one of us do what you're doing. I've made a million dollars mistakes. That's why I help people. So they don't think it's smart credit. I wish I had a mentor. But I didn't.
Mike Swenson
So then you said it took 18 months to go from where you've essentially replaced your income as an investment Baker to now you quit your job after 18 months? Or when it was it that quit my job after 18 months? Got it? Okay. And then you've been all in on building these streams of income through him? Well, and what I what I love about it, you know, we we focus on building wealth, right through opportunities in real estate, is yeah, the the purchase is one thing, but you're also playing the bank. And so that's, that's the genius of this, is you're getting your money back and you're building a stream of income.
Mark Podolsky
Yeah, exactly. And then the other part of it is that I have a very simple philosophy, I can always make more money, I can't get more time. So we automate 90% of the business was software on the front end, inexpensive virtual assistants, we use this global talent, and then software, the back end that automates are no collection. So geek pay.io on the back end, LG pass on the front end. And then we hire our virtual assistants like Upwork or Fiverr. There's a service called land VA for you.com That actually has trained LAN VAs that know our process of buying something roadmap.
Mike Swenson
So how long did it take you to kind of create a system out of this where it's not mark doing it? But now you've you've got that stuff? I mean, you mentioned you made millions of dollars of mistakes. But how did that evolve from 2000. To here we are in 2021.
Mark Podolsky
So I was doing it all myself for like six years. That's doing great, right? And then I had a buddy, who he sold his company for, like $350 million. And his mentor was Mark Meyerson, who's a billionaire, his partner was Ross Perot. So I go to I go to meet Ori for coffee. And I'm bragging to him about how well I'm doing in my business, right? Like, oh, he'll be impressed. He looked at me, he's like, Don't insult me. He's like, don't call yourself an entrepreneur. Don't call yourself a business owner. Like, what are you talking about? He's like, You got yourself a nice job there. He's like, What happens if you die tomorrow? What happens? Your family? What happens your business? And like, he's like, who's doing all the work? So he's like, if you want to be an entrepreneur, get yourself out of everything you're doing. You have processes, you have systems. And you know, it's funny, because at that time, Steve Jobs was alive. He's like, we think's gonna have an apple and Steve Jobs eyes. And look, look what happened. Apple, I mean, there's fine. So that's, that was like what I needed. And then I needed somebody to push me because I had what Chris Ducker would call "hero syndrome". I didn't think anybody would could care, or do anything as well as me. Turns out, I was really wrong. But I had to learn the hard way.
Mike Swenson
Yeah. Well, and that's where a lot of people say, you know, they say I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a business owner. The reality is, is you're self employed. Because if if Mark goes away, the business dies. And so that's the goal is you have to work on how do I get more stuff off of my plate? You know, right now, for me, I have a team of agents that I work with, and yet at the same time, if if I don't do some production of some sorts, I'm not making the money that I want to make. So it's how do we build that leverage to where I can truly grow through people? And it's leveraged through systems or software? And yeah, that software can can automate a lot of things and yeah, if you've got the right people helping and and enhancing that, then you're you're in good shape. So So what is what does your day look like now that you have this team of people in this team of leverage behind you? Where is your best use of your time or what?
Mark Podolsky
So this is how I structure my days. So Mondays and Fridays are my terminal days. That pretend if this is my last On Earth, because I don't want to take my last breath. How do I want to spend my day, it's often doing podcasts with people like me, it's doing podcasts or it's, you know, I meditate, I want to be in nature. I want to let the people in my life know that I love them. I want to spend time with them. So I work on my relationships, I love to read. So I'll do those things that look like I'm just kind of playing. Right. But in reality, I'm always sort of working in thinking. Now Tuesdays are because I have the art of passive income podcast. So Tuesdays are what I do my interviews. Yep. Wednesdays are my team meeting days. And then Thursday's, our client meeting days. And then Friday is terminal day.
Mike Swenson
Like I said, we talk about time and financial freedom, you know, you've you've built that financial freedom, and now you've got the time freedom, who wouldn't love to do that, and just pick here my days, here's what I'm doing. And and I think that's, that's what I love about this podcast so much is, you know, I started it, kind of with the, the traditional real estate agent in mind, wanting to expose them to other areas of real estate, right, or even other areas. Like, you know, we've had interviews, people who run virtual assistant companies on here, and it's helping people in real estate through virtual assistants to get their time and financial freedom. And, boy, there's, there's, you know, a lot more sexy things out there than raw land, but look what you've been able to do, I think we would agree, you're, you're probably just smarter than most people, and more strategic than most people finding a niche where you're doing this, and it sounds so simple. And yet, you've built a fantastic career in a fantastic life. I mean, how many people want to be investment bankers, and, like, forget that I'm buying land all day long. And look at the life that I can create through that.
Mark Podolsky
Thank you. I mean, that's, that's really my mission in life is to help people get out of what I call so economic dependency, which means that they're not personally working. They're not making any money. So you know, anyone have a job, freelancers, real estate agents, doctors, lawyers, doesn't matter what your income level is. But the whole goal of life is, at a young enough age, where you have your health, you want to solve your time, and your money problems. But so often, like when you're young, you've got your health, and you've gotten time, you got no money, middle age, you've got a money and you got health, you got no time. And then like my parents, they have money, they have time, but they don't have the health to do the things that they like they used to love to do. So if we can compress that, life becomes so much better. And you get the time to really, you know, move up Maslow's hierarchy of needs into self actualization.
Mike Swenson
Yeah. In I mean, I know I mentioned this previously, like, just the beauty of the passive income of how you've structured this, because, you know, as as a realtor, there's so many times where it's like, you've got to find your next deal to get your next paycheck. And that paycheck might be fantastic. But at the same time, what's next, you got to go sell another house, you got to go sell another house. And with you, you're doing deals, and you're building the stream of income by playing the bank, essentially, where each time you're taking another step forward. And until that seven year note, you know, expires, you have that passive income, but in the meantime, you've had seven years to build more income on top of it. So it's just this this pile of money, I guess that keeps growing?
Mark Podolsky
Yeah, exactly. I don't want cash on cash flow. Mm hmm. And it just solves all my money problems. Absolutely. And then I don't, you know, I don't have to constantly hustle for the next deal as well. So does by myself in my team time, as well. And then when you 10 exit, then it doesn't matter what happens with the market. So we have enough of these land notes. Even if you know you're a great recession again, and 50% of them go away. Your lifestyle doesn't have to change.
Mike Swenson
So so how do people get started? You know, what, what would be your advice, obviously, you know, you help people you coach people. But if, if I'm listening to this right now, I'm like, dang, that sounds too good to be true. And it probably is, it's probably harder than I think that it is. You know, what, what would you say to people that are interested in want to kind of dip their toe in the water or, you know, start the process here?
Mark Podolsky
Right. I mean, you know, as far as being too good to be true. Start doing it, and then you'll answer that second question. It ain't easy. It's simple, but nothing worth doing in life is easy. Right? Right. Because
Mike Swenson
97% of the people are saying no to you. So you know, right, right. So right off the bat. Yeah, you've already got 97% of the people that You know, we talked about the 3%. We talked about the, the wealth building that happens from that. But yeah, in your system 97 People are like, pass.
Mark Podolsky
Right? Right. And then you know, you've got to, you know, know how to, you know, your numbers, if you look at, you know, do pricing matrix. So we train people how to do it. But I would say that the best place to go, and the best way to learn is by doing it. So if you can do it for free, find out if this mileage resonates you. That's the best way I think to learn. So I have a free course. It's the land geek.com, Ford slash quick deals, I'll teach you how to double your money 30 days or less. And if the model resonates you, you'll go deeper into the training. And if it doesn't, well, you've just, you know, learn something new and great, you move on.
Mike Swenson
And what's the what's kind of the fallout rate of people that, you know, and we've all had seminars, we've heard courses, we've bought things that we've done, and they just don't happen. So you know, what kind of how many people do move forward and say, Yes, this is something that I want to pursue, right? And
Mark Podolsky
The truth is, and it's the dirty truth in in real estate information. Most people who buy these courses won't make any money. Right? It's just the fact. Right? I think there's like a 3% success rate on these, do it yourself courses. Yep,
Mike Swenson
It's the same thing as a real estate agent. I mean, 80% of the people are out of the business in two years, you know, so
Mark Podolsky
It's tough. So I would say, if you don't have grit, you don't have persistence, you don't have determination, you don't believe in it, don't do it, find something you believe in, find somebody that can stick with number one. Number two, I would say that, uh, you know, if you're the kind of person who's super motivated, if you get up at four in the morning, you go to the gym by five, you work out, you can read a book, and you have your perfect form, then you could be one of those 3%. Otherwise, you want to do what we call, which is Flight School, which is group training, it has accountability. You do deals with your group, you have to do the deals, and we have a guarantee that the tuition investment on flight school, you'll make back in 180 days or less, if you show us your work, and you actually did the program. So if you do that, you have no risk. We put our money where our mouth is. So that's done with you program. And that's what I recommend, if you're really serious about it. Do that, and you'll be just fine.
Mike Swenson
Mm hmm. And, you know, you'd mentioned you know, getting up early and, and, you know, self motivated people, what kind of what, what would be a reasonable time commitment for people, like, you know, how you said, earn your money back in 30 days? How much time would I need to put in? And obviously, these are just averages. There's, you know, people on both sides of the spectrum, but you know, what, what type of work would you need to put in to see those results,
Mark Podolsky
I recommend a focus two hours a day in the business, when you first start, and then you can get out of it. I work five days a week, seven days a week, this is five days. So I work 10 hours a week. Yeah, so I work about two hours a month, in frontier properties, my land investing business. So I'm just looking at numbers and having a like a meeting, right? Because the team's doing all the work. So all I'm doing is thinking, instead, you want to get to that point to be the chairman of the board. Right? You don't want to be the CEO CEOs meetings all day, you wanna be the chairman. So that's the goal. And that's what we teach you to do is how to scale
Mike Swenson
and kind of on the fun stuff here talking about the cash flow numbers. I mean, you don't have to give specific numbers but like, how did you see that pool grow as you now you're starting to turn some of these land properties and you're getting that consistent that cash flow or the the car payment from people, essentially, or the the mortgage payment from people on these land deals? How does that that grow exponentially? You know, as as you go,
Mark Podolsky
Yeah, it just grows in time. So you know, it's usually the second year of this business that hockey sticks up. Roberto Chavez was one of our clients. He's a full time attorney. And after his first year in the business, he went down to three days a week, after second year in the business, he replaced his income is over 25,000 a month in passive. And now him and his fiance are traveling the world doing land. And that's the other thing about this is that it's not geographically limited. All you need is a laptop, and a internet connection and you're in business you do from anywhere in the world.
Mike Swenson
So so you're not calling people because I think that's the other question people would have to is like, Well, how do I know who owns this land? How do I find those people? You know, how do you get in touch with what The people to find, you know, sift through to find those three, those three people that you're doing deals with.
Mark Podolsky
Right? So Right. So for every 100 offers, you're going to get by three deals. So you just do 20 offers a day with a software, you can list for the county, scrub that list, like let's say, by use code VL for vacant land, you upload that listen to software, you drip out your offers, they come back, and you start doing deals.
Mike Swenson
And you're so you're making 20 offers a day right off the bat.
Mark Podolsky
Our clients, I obviously I make more, but we first start because if you don't have a system and a team built, yep, you know, take it easy, because like, you might get all these offers back then you don't have to do the team to do the due diligence. fast enough, you'll lose it. Yep.
Mike Swenson
And it's as simple as because you're, you know, buying inexpensive land, you don't have to have a big pile of money to start with.
Mark Podolsky
No, not at all. I recommend 500,500 bucks to start with.
Mike Swenson
Sounds simple, right? Yeah, it's simple. It's not easy. So talk a little bit about the financial freedom leading to time freedom. We talked a little bit about your schedule, when did you see that really free up for you? And, and and what's some of the fun stuff that you get to do as a result of the leverage that you've built behind you?
Mark Podolsky
Yeah, so I've been kind of semi retired for about 10 years. So once I was 40, I kind of have this all kind of done for me. Okay. And so, you know, I raised my kids, I have three kids, and I worked from home. And that was my focus, I would say for that, that time period, was really just being completely immersed in their worlds, like, I would joke to my friends, it's their world, I'm just living in it. But now as they've gotten older, you know, my youngest will be in college in about 16 months. And I plan on spending about two to three years traveling around the world, just going back and forth, doing the podcast from whatever location I'm in, and working from whatever location I'm in, and then flying the kids out to whatever, Matt, we're coming back to the states, spending time with family, and then going back out, and just traveling around the world for a couple years. The smile plan.
Mike Swenson
So then how many people so you know, we talked about 5500? Roughly transactions, you know, that ahead have happened? How many are you currently receiving payments on on kind of a monthly basis?
Mark Podolsky
A lot? I don't even know. Really? Yeah, I don't know. I just have to cash flow. I mean, you know, sometimes we have about, you know, in this market about 8% default rate and normal markets by 10%. Because we don't do credit checks. And then in 2010 I lost 50% of my note portfolio. So it's not a big deal. You just have to rebalance your portfolio resell it, because you still own the asset. There's no cost for closure with a land contract. But you know, you got to use a profit first model which is what we teach, right so that you're you're saving money
Mike Swenson
Right, Yeah, yeah, you've got to be be ready to weather the storm you can't you don't want to spend all your money before you make it so yeah, exactly. We've talked about this isn't something that's easy, but you know, you're you're building a life that you want to live and and you're getting that financial freedom and that time freedom that's so important to people but But what else would you share with people you know, lessons,
Mark Podolsky
I'd say like the biggest lesson is the Simon Sinek TED Talk, start with why like your purpose has to be bigger than yourself. Because when things get tough, you want to have a strong enough why to keep going. And I love this Zig Ziglar quote, which says if you'll do the next three to five years, what other people won't do, you'll be able to do for the rest of your life. What other people can't do
Mike Swenson
I love it Mark So for people that you know that love this and want to learn more or ask some more questions, how they how can they get a hold of you? And whether their stuff would you like to plug here?
Mark Podolsky
Yeah, I would say you know start at thelandgeek.com And you can if you're like to read check out dirt rich on Amazon.
Mike Swenson
Awesome. Well thanks so much for coming on Mark I really appreciate it and and just love sharing a different dynamic you know, it's it's finding these fun, different stories. And you know, there's lots of opportunity in real estate for people of all different skill sets and passion and time that they have available money that they have available in so this is certainly a cool spot to be in and you've carved out a fantastic life and and would love for other people listening to this that that it resonates. They'll do the same.
