Money From Dirt: The Wonders Of Land Flipping – Mark Podolsky

 

 

Mark Podolsky  00:00

That is a completely different model, which I don’t teach. And I don’t necessarily recommend unless you have a fund and you have the capital. The model that I’m describing is the gateway drug into doing bigger deals. So you start really small, then you build it, and then you can start seeing the world in a different way. Welcome to

 

Greg Lyons  00:18

the passive income brothers podcast.

 

Tim Lyons  00:20

Here we take the fear out of real estate investing using real life stories of everyday successful investors. Let’s go. Welcome to another episode of the passive income brothers podcast. My name is Tim Lyons and today I’m joined by two rockstars, one of which being my brother Greg, how you doing today, buddy?

 

Greg Lyons  00:36

Tim? I’m doing great. Thank you so much for that introduction. And being a rock star is high up on my list.

 

Tim Lyons  00:42

Well, you were having a good hair day today, buddy. So I want to give you a nice shout out. today. We are joined by Mark Podolsky and he is going to bring a different flavor to the episodes of this podcast because we have never had someone who talks about investing in the land the way that Mark does. So I got my pen and pencil ready my notebook. And I highly encourage you guys, if you’re driving, pull that car over get the notebook out, because this is going to be a great episode. So without further ado, Mark, welcome to the show. Tim,

 

Mark Podolsky  01:11

Greg, a pleasure and honor. Thank you guys so much for having me. Yeah,

 

Tim Lyons  01:17

so this has been a great start. We had a little bit of a hiccup in the beginning, but I’m happy that we’re all here. So, Mark, I’ve gotten so much value from podcasts over the years just hearing people’s stories, you know, like, Where were you? What made you do what you do and kind of bringing this into present day. So give the listeners a little background on your story. Yeah,

 

Mark Podolsky  01:36

so if we rewind the tape to 2000 I was miserable micromanaged. 45 minute commute to work and back investment banker specializing in mergers and acquisitions with private equity groups. And guys, it got so bad for me that I would get the Sunday blues, anticipating Monday coming around, I’d get the Friday blues, anticipating the weekend going by really fast, and having to be back at work on Monday. So my firm hires this guy. He’s telling me that as a side hustle, he’s buying up raw land pennies on the dollar. And he’s flipping them online. And he’s making a 300% return on his investment. So I’m looking at companies all day long, great company great, has 15% EBIT dot margins, or free cash flow, average company’s 10%. I’m looking at companies all day long, less than 10%. So of course, I don’t believe so we go to a tax deed auction in New Mexico, I’ve got three grand saved up for car repairs, I do exactly what he tells me to do. I buy 10 Half Acre parcels and average price of $300 each. I flipped them online. They sell for an average price of $1,200. Each 3% It worked. So I took all that money, which another auction in Arizona, which is where I live. And again, this is 2000. There’s no one in the room. I’m buying up lots of acreage for nothing. So I made over $90,000 cash on that one auction. So I go to my wife, and she’s pregnant, said Honey, I’m gonna quit my job and become a full time land investor. And she’s like, Absolutely not. So I said, Okay. So it took me 18 months for the land investing income to exceed the investment, baking income. And then I quit. And I’ve been doing it full time ever since. I’ve done over 6000 transactions in counting, and I absolutely love it.

 

Greg Lyons  03:28

All right, okay. There weren’t a whole lot, Tim. I mean, before we go any farther, we’ll get into the land in a second. But your wife was pregnant, fast forward 18 months, and you probably have a one and a half year old baby, and you still convinced your wife that you’re able to quit your job. Again, whole separate podcast, on your skills on your sales skills. But that’s an amazing feat unto itself. Land flipping must’ve been going extremely well kind of take us through where the journey went from there. Because you know, we’re in 2022 right now. And you’ve done over 6000 deals, walk us through kind of walk us through the mechanics of how this all works.

 

Mark Podolsky  04:13

Sure, sure. So I’m going to use you guys as a case study. So Tim, Greg, where do you guys live?

 

Tim Lyons  04:19

I’m in New York, and Greg’s in Virginia. Okay,

 

Mark Podolsky  04:22

so New York, Virginia. So I’m gonna assume that you guys own five acres of raw land in Arizona, which is where I live, and you owe $200 in back taxes. So essentially, you’re advertising two important things to me. Number one, you have no emotional attachment to the role and your New York and Virginia properties in Arizona. And number two, you’re financially distressed in some weird way. Because we don’t pay for things like our property taxes. We don’t value them in the same way. As a result. The county treasurer keeps sending you guys notices saying lions brothers, if you don’t pay your taxes, As you’re losing that property to a tax deed, or tax lien investor, so all I’m going to do is look at the comparable sales on your five acre parcel for the last 12 to 18 months, I’m gonna take the lowest comparable sale, let’s say it’s $10,000. And I’m going to divide by four. And that’s gonna get me what Warren Buffett would call a 300% margin of safety. So I’m gonna send you an actual offer of $2,500 on your five acre parcel. Now you guys accept it. Why? Because for you $2,500 is better than nothing. In reality, three to 5% of people will accept your quote unquote, top dollar offer, but now that you’ve accepted it, I have to go through due diligence or in depth research, I have to confirm you guys still own the property. To confirm back taxes are only $200 I have to make sure there’s been no breaks in the chain of title, no liens or encumbrances. Now, all of this can be done and outsourced very easily to my team in Jamaica, we pay about $11 for due diligence. Now, if I was investing more than say, $5,000, I would just close traditionally through a title company. But because they’re connected to an American Title Company, let’s assume everything checks out. And I sent you a check for $2,300. I pay the taxes of $200. I own it free and clear. And now I’m going to sell it 30 days or less, and to make a cash flow. So guys, I have a built in best buyer. Do you notice? No, I don’t, the neighbors, the neighbors. So I’m gonna send out neighbor letters, say, Hey, here’s your opportunity, protect your privacy, protect your views, know your neighbor. So oftentimes, the neighbors will buy. Now if they pass, I’ll go to my buyers list. The buyers list passes, I’ve got a little website you guys may have heard of. It’s called Craigslist. It’s the 50th most trafficked website United States, I’ll get to I know you’ve heard of called meta, or Facebook, buy sell groups in the marketplace. And then I’ll go to the lands, land moto.com lands of america.com, land and farm.com, land flip.com and hub.com. These are platforms where people buy and sell raw land. But the magic is we make the pricing irresistible, this is the secret, because all I’m going to ask for is a $2,500 down payment. And then when they get a car payment. So let’s say it’s 297 a month, and 9% interest next 84 months. So I get a one time sale. I’m gonna get my money out on the down payment. I could go six to 10 months out. And now I’m getting to 97 A month 9% interest was 84 months. Guys, no renters. No rehabs, no renovations, 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 that it’s a simple game. Can we create enough land notes where a passive income exceeds our fixed expenses? And now you’re working because you want to? Not because you have to?

 

Tim Lyons  08:06

Well, I’m getting ready to quit my w two job. How about you, Greg?

 

Greg Lyons  08:11

Sounds like a plan. That

 

Tim Lyons  08:13

was easy. I’ll probably be your number one student. I mean, just tell me how to do this, you know. So this is what I’m talking about guys. Like this is not stuff that you heard. Mark was a m&a investment banker, right? Mergers and acquisitions, it’s probably smart dude dealing with private equity companies talking about either, right, which is how company’s cash flows are valued. So you can buy companies and take them over, right. And now he’s convinced his pregnant wife now gave birth to a brand new baby, that he’s going to leave that probably lucrative career of investment bankers to be a land flipper. I mean, incredible stuff is not stuff you hear every day is that stuff you hear on Wall Street, it’s not stuff you hear on mainstream media. But now mark is doing this. He’s had a successful run for 20 years. He’s got a great podcast, he’s a coach. He’s teaching people how to do this. And it’s just because of finding a niche, right finding some way to add value to create value. And then you can basically structure it just like Mark said, you can structure car payments, you know, basically. So people say, Yeah, I want to raise my hand. I want that land, and I’ll pay 300 bucks a month for it. Right. So I love that mark. Let’s take it one step further. Right. So you’re in Arizona. And you know, when I first got into real estate a couple years ago, I wanted to see my property. I wanted to touch it. I wanted to drive past it. I wanted to know about it. I wanted to be intimately involved in it. And then Greg and I kind of built this private equity company called cityside capital where now we raise capital for bigger commercial deals all across the Sunbelt, Arizona, Texas, Florida. You name it, we probably have a deal that right so but I had to get over that my backyard type of mentality and I’m gonna assume but I want you to tell us that you’re probably not doing deals just in your backyard. You’re probably doing them everywhere. Is that correct?

 

Mark Podolsky  09:59

You Yeah, I mean, guys, let’s be honest, right? Nobody wakes up and thinks themselves boy like some broadband today in Iowa, unless you live in Iowa. So we’re gonna focus on the sunshine states, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, California, Texas, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, little bit in the Northwest. And then Florida. It’s not to say that we can’t do deals in the Midwest and beautiful areas, the Midwest, or the Carolinas, but that’s really where we’re getting our biggest buyer pool. And we’re gonna we have the most inexpensive raw land in this country.

 

Tim Lyons  10:36

I love that. So Mark, talk to us about you know, obviously, our podcast is called the passive income brothers podcast. But it’s really, you know, like people who are interested in real estate interested in building passive income, maybe they’re an investment banker, and they’re micromanage, and they’re getting crushed with a W two, and they’re watching their 401 k circle the drain. And then they’re saying themselves, damn, I, you know, I got three kids. Now I want to coach some teams, I want to have more time, but I can’t, right, I’ve been keeping up with the Joneses, I’m trying to max out my 4401 my stock accounts getting crushed, you know, what do I do with my capital? What kind of conversation would you have with a guy like or girl like that right now and say, Look, there’s possibilities? What kind of conversation Do you have? Or would you have with them? Right,

 

Mark Podolsky  11:18

so that person has responsibilities. So they can’t just quit their W two job. But what they could do is wake up an hour earlier, and go to bed, maybe an hour later. And so if they spent two hours a day, focus two hours a day, not, you know how most of us are, with our two hours, we’re getting interrupted by a cell phone or a social media posts, a focus two hours a day, working in their land business and starting to build it. And 90% of that business, what I talked about the model is automated, with inexpensive software on the front end, inexpensive software on the back end to manage your no collections, and inexpensive virtual assistants from around the world. So once you understand the concept of social economic dependency, which means if you’re personally not working, you’re not making any money, then you start looking at the world very differently. It’s not how do I do this, it’s who can I get to do this. And you start thinking like a CEO, and you start building something bigger than yourself. And you start creating that passive income. And then you start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, where then you can eventually exit your W two job, but anyone with responsibilities a family, I would never say Oh, quit your job and start doing full time land investing, you guys understand everyone starves their first year in real estate. Now, not in the land business, they don’t. So you can very quickly get in the next 1218 months, a passive income stream that is handling your mortgage, your car payment, the kids activities. And really, when you have that piece settled, let’s say 1218 months, 24 months, where you’ve replaced your W two income, your W two income is a way more enjoyable, I’ve got clients who can go to work. And their attitude is like, I don’t need to take any, you know, anything from anyone, not from my boss, not from my co workers. I don’t have to play the politics game, I can walk out at any time. It’s a very different attitude. When you go to work, it becomes actually more enjoyable.

 

Greg Lyons  13:36

Yeah, there’s no doubt about that. And, you know, I was just having a conversation with a friend of mine who may be looking because I’m at that age. I’m 44. And a lot of my peers and friends, they’re going through kind of like that life transition right now kids are a little bit older. What do I want to do with the rest of my life? And just having this conversation the other day is, do I just go and get a different job? Or do I build something on my own, and this is the exact conversation. And I think there’s more pride and satisfaction when you go and build something on your own. And it’s something that you can get inspired by. And it’s something that you build in for yourself. So a lot of these things that we look to are out of the box, you’re not going to find something like this on LinkedIn, there’s not going to be a job posting for land flipper. But you could have a very lucrative passive income flow. But it takes a little bit of time, just like you’re saying. One of my questions about what you do mark is, where does this work? Well, you kind of told us the states and stuff like that. But does this work? Well in urban cores Suburban? Is this more of a farmland play? And then are there other demographic factors that play into where you’re looking for land? Like when we look for apartments, its population growth, job growth, stuff like that. Well What kind of other factors play into where your land flipping works really well.

 

Mark Podolsky  15:06

So the land flipping is ideally going to work well, maybe an hour to three hours from the nearest city in those states. So let’s take California, for example, you’re not going to get an infill lot in LA, or San Francisco or San Diego 25 cents of the dollar, those people can go the biggest, baddest land broker in town, and they’ll sell it for $100.25 on the dollar. So we want to go where people have bought the land years ago, they never developed it. And now we have an opportunity to pick it up 25, three cents of the dollar, it’d be like if I sent you an offer for everything in your garage, that you haven’t used 25 or three cents $1? How quickly would you accept that?

 

Tim Lyons  15:52

Then here’s the other thing. Well, first of all, I just want to comment on one thing that you said before, I love to you laid out the three pillars that I took away from what you said, we all have 168 hours every week, right? And can you peel off two extra hours in each day, right to make something like this happen? You don’t get rich overnight, right? This could take 234 years to replace your income dependent on how focused you are at building this business. And number three, is asking who and not how, right, that’s a great book, by the way, if anybody’s out there and hasn’t read who not how it’s a just a transformational paradigm shift, and how to approach you know, building a business or really anything in life. But anyway, when you just said, you know, one to three hours outside of like the major city, I’m wondering, is there another play. So if you do secure title to a piece of land, and maybe you see a opportunity that maybe it can be developed, or there could be some other use for it. Like other ways, besides just flipping the land that maybe you can now team up with a contractor or a land development and scale up that land and make it more valuable? There are other plays to be had? Yeah,

 

Mark Podolsky  17:01

absolutely. You can look at any land and look at the highest and best use, but the land that you’re describing, is going to be way more expensive than the land that I’m describing. And so depending on your budget, you could definitely look at that model. So for example, your typical land model is a land baking model, where I might look at the path of growth in a city, and I’m gonna buy this big parcel of land for $10 million. And I’m gonna pay the taxes, and it’s going to be negative cash flow, for who knows how long, but at some point, the developer calls. And now that $10 million parcel is 40, or $50 million. So that’s kind of the hockey stick land baking model. It’s very flat development comes and it hockey sticks up. That is a completely different model, which I don’t teach. And I don’t necessarily recommend, unless you have a fund, and you have the capital. So really, the model that I’m describing is the gateway drug into doing bigger deals. So you start really small, and then you build it, and then you can start seeing the world in a different way. And inserting large deals.

 

Greg Lyons  18:21

That’s a gateway drug. That’s a great way to explain it. You know, this is all very interesting that I know our listeners are getting a lot of value from this. And if you don’t start doing land flipping, it’s just another way to think about things right. And you know, it may spur another idea for you. So that’s what I really liked about this book. Can you tell us about or give us an example of a deal that did not go as well meaning, either you paid too much for the property, or you had a little trouble disposing of the property? And how did you work yourself out of that situation?

 

Mark Podolsky  18:57

Yeah. So this is my treasure Lake deal. So in 2006, first of all, the market is going crazy, if you remember 2006. So I find this development and treasure Lake Pennsylvania, which is an affluent area of Western Pennsylvania. And it’s this gated community, and it’s over developed by 1000 Lots. And because of the gated community, each lot has powered water. And the owners are being assessed a power fee and a water fee, even though they haven’t built. It’s over built, but it’s beautiful. There’s million dollar homes in there. It has two PGA golf courses, three lakes, and I come in, and I fly and if I suit and I start meeting with the county, and I start meeting with the Property Owners Association, I said hey, look, you guys have dead money here. No one’s paying their property taxes. No one’s paying the property association fees. You got dead money. I’m gonna resurrect it. All you have to do deed me the property’s 50 bucks. lot, I’ll sell them, I’ll collect your properties or association fees for you, you’ll start getting new tax revenue. You’ll see how amazing this will be. Guess what? They said? No, they were afraid. Well, who’s gonna buy these lots, we like getting our tee times we liked it, the lake is quiet. So it took me two years of negotiating to get the deal. Now it’s 2008. And I get the deal. And I start selling lots, I make about $100,000. And then what happens? We get the crisis, the bottom falls out, I can’t give away a lot. And it’s the first time that I really had to sort of renege a promise I made in business and give back the property. So yeah, I made $100,000. But when I factored in my time, it see, first deal ever broke even on.

 

Tim Lyons  20:54

That’s interesting. I mean, look, I mean, like, everything has a risk, right? I mean, nothing is a failsafe, you know, get rich, quick, overnight, you know, there’s risks, right, and you win and you lose, but you know, instead of folding up your tent and taking your ball and going home, right, and saying real estate and land flipping is too risky. And I know whatever. It’s, you know, I’m hesitant to call it a failure, but it’s experience right, you put another notch on the belt, you got some experience on, you know, market dynamics and recession. And you know, how does that work? Right. So now you’re more experienced going into the next deal and for the rest of your career? So that’s actually a great question. It’s, you know, something we get all the time, right, real estate is risky, or, you know, tell me about a deal that didn’t work, you know, how do I lose my money in this type of situation? So I’m glad you asked that question.

 

Mark Podolsky  21:39

It’s so funny to me, when when people are like real estate is risky. You guys know what risky is? It’s a W two job, like I grew up hearing, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. What’s the job? Right, if you’re working at Who should we pick on? Let’s let’s pick on Dell computers? Right? Let’s say you’re working at Dell. Right? You have one role you do at Dell. And there are lots of decisions being made, but you have no influence over and one day, they look at their quarterly earnings, like we have to do a big swath of layoffs. 10,000 people can get laid off in one day that you had no control over. How is that not risky? Right, compared to real estate, where you can have multiple income streams, you can in various different ways. So I think what’s interesting is that it’s not risky, it’s uncertainty. It’s being uncomfortable with uncertainty, where when you have a job, it’s certain, and yet it’s risky, where in real estate or entrepreneurship, it’s uncertain, but eventually, on a long enough timeline, you get paid.

 

Tim Lyons  22:46

That’s right. You know, it brings me back to Greg and Mark, I work as a New York City firefighter, that’s my full time job. And, you know, for nine years, I worked as a nurse, you know, I was in a level one trauma center as a nurse exciting in the beginning, right, but then, you know, while I will sudden, I have three kids, right, three little girls, and, you know, I’m trading my time for money, right. And I really, as a firefighter, and a nurse, you’re not really at risk of losing your job, like they’re just like, in demand, I guess, and not easily replaceable, I guess. But, you know, I’m trading my time for money, I’m literally, you know, if I don’t work, 12 hour shift in the hospital, I don’t get paid for I, if I don’t go to the firehouse, I don’t get paid. And, you know, that’s what got me into how to build a business outside of, you know, what I was doing, right? How to create passive income, and what do I do and how to get educated and that, uh, you know, take that action. And that’s all this really is, I mean, this is striking me the same way as single family rentals, or, I don’t know, a fix and flip even, you know, but like, you know, we got into apartments and self storage, but it’s the same route, right. I mean, we’re in this dogfight, you know, with a w two, and we’re trying to maximize time with family, and work life balance, if that even exists, right. And this is just another way to make it happen and put your money to work in a way that you don’t have to necessarily trade as much time as using a team of vas, you know, to make it happen. So I love that. And I just want to stack on top of that, Mark, you know, some people will say, you know, well listen, like, I don’t have a lot of extra money to do real estate, and they don’t realize that they can tap into maybe a self directed IRA, or if they have changed jobs, because nobody really stays at the same company for 40 years anymore, and gets the golden watch at the end, right. So you might have a couple of different 401, K’s from a couple of different, you know, jobs that you’ve had, and now you can roll all those in without any kind of taxable event into a self directed IRA. So I’m curious, can people use a self directed IRA or a solo 401k to maybe tap into that unknown funding source that they had where they can have to do these types of deals?

 

Mark Podolsky  24:46

Tim, first of all, thank you for your service. And absolutely, they can. And what’s interesting is, our margins are 300 to 1,000%. So this is a really great way to supercharge your retirement and grow your retirement tax deferred or tax free in a Roth vehicle. What’s even more interesting is tapping your friends who have self directed vehicles, they need to put that money to work, pay them 60% 80% 12% 10%, it’s irrelevant with our margins. And that’s another great way to grow your business. I personally don’t like the idea of my money being in jail, Grant can’t have access to it till I’m 59 and a half. So that’s another thing. But nevertheless, absolutely. For those people that have those vehicles, it’s a great way to grow.

 

Greg Lyons  25:41

Well, yeah, no, it absolutely is. And you know, you’ve taken this one step further and developed a coaching program, and we’ll have information about your website and stuff like that. And the way you coach people into showing them how to do this. And you of course, started small and you know, buying smaller lots. And I’m just curious about your kind of business plan right now. Are you still staying with the smaller lots? Have you created a fund? How big is your company gotten during the time you’ve been doing this for over 20 years?

 

Mark Podolsky  26:14

Yeah, I’m not typical. We do have a fun, we work with accredited investors. And so we’re doing bigger deals. That’s something that I don’t teach at this time. Because there’s just not that many people that have that type of experience. And it would be a little se irresponsible to take investor money if you don’t know what you’re doing. But once you get to a certain level and been doing it for a long time, then that might be something that at some point in time, I would teach people. So for me personally, we do help everybody on the economic spectrum. So whether you have more time than money, this is a great vehicle to grow. But if you have more money than time, we can help you as well replace, say your doctor lawyer C suite income, because my whole why is I want to help everyone get out of so economic dependency, move up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, into self actualization, and really figure out what is your greatest purpose on this planet. But if we’re just in survival mode, we never get to move up to that piece, because we’re just working too hard. We don’t have the time to even think about it.

 

Tim Lyons  27:32

I love that. Dude. That’s the piece that really gets me going is like, you know, the purpose behind why we even do this, right? Like, I could have a nice life as the firefighter, er, nurse, I did have a nice life, two vacations a year, my bills got paid, you know, I mean, like, everything was fine, except for my time, right? I mean, that was in I felt like my purpose wasn’t just to wake up and go to work in the morning, you know, I wanted to be home, I wanted to be the coach of my kids teams. I wanted to have a podcast with my older, great looking brother, Greg, you know, he’s so handsome. I just wanted to know, I want to have that in my life. So I love that you brought that up. So thank you for that. Mark, I want to be super mindful of your time, I feel like this is gonna have to be a repeat show with you because you got my juices kind of going. And I have like a ton of questions that I don’t even know how to even ask him yet. So we’re gonna have to have you back on the show. But we end the show with three questions for every guest. And the first one is, Jim Rohn says that a formal education will make you a living and a self education will make you a fortune. So when you hear that, quote, how does that hit with you?

 

Mark Podolsky  28:37

That really is so wise. And if you buy kids are in college, and I can tell you right now, I’m paying a lot of money for them to learn how to be a professor. That’s literally what they’re learning how to be. Because in the real world, everything that they’re learning won’t apply. So Jim Rohn has it right. You have to read, what’s that cliche? readers are leaders. And it’s true. I’m constantly reading, listening to podcasts. My idea of what I’m feeding my mind is so important. I won’t watch the news. I will rarely watch a television show, because it’s just not good for my brain. And I think of our brains like a bio computer, what do you want to program your brain? And so there’s so much ancient wisdom out there. I would rather read Marcus Aurelius or Warren Buffett, or some great biography of someone that has done amazing things in the world. Winston Churchill, then spend my time in this maybe somewhat pleasurable state of getting a dopamine hit with a Netflix show. over some other piece of media agree,

 

Greg Lyons  30:03

absolutely not. You’re right about that. And this episode probably will not be brought to us by Netflix. After that advertisement for reading, and you know, Netflix is now exactly knocking down our door to sponsor our podcast. But that’s another story. Mark. Our second question is, what do you say to people that come across your coaching and your platform? And they say investing in real estate is too risky?

 

Mark Podolsky  30:30

Well, I don’t have anyone ever say that to me. Because the way that we buy the asset 25, three cents on the dollar. That’s not their issue. Their issue with me is Mark, if it’s so great, why are you teaching it? And I think that’s a fair question. It’s a question my wife asked, when I started teaching my first student, she said, Well, aren’t you creating your own competition? Why on earth would you want to share this? And so I put on my investment banker hat, and I said, Well, how big is the market, and there are billions of acres of raw land available just in United States. And guys, let’s be honest, you can think of a more boring real estate niche. If we could have a real estate investment Association meeting 99 of them will be there 100 people in the room 99 of them will be flippers, wholesalers and landlords, you and I will be doing land guides there, you’re not going to go on HGTV or the DIY Network and see, flip this land the before pictures rather than the attributes is raw land. So you have this unloved niche. It’s not sexy, and it’s massive. You meet a million people could be in this niche. But more importantly for me is that when I sell a piece of land to someone, they’re happy. But when I teach somebody how to get out of social economic dependency, so they can spend more time with their family, with their friends, living their best life, and they contact me say, Mark, you changed my life. That is the most gratifying thing for me professionally. And that’s why I teach other people how to do this. You

 

Tim Lyons  32:08

know, Greg, that’s a great point. I mean, I was actually thinking that before, I’m like, why is this guy teaching everybody how to do this, if they’re creating his own, you know, if I’m at steps of City Hall trying to buy tax liens, and I’m like, Hey, there’s my students, and they’re bidding against I mean, that’s what I was thinking before. But I’m glad you kind of clear that up. You know, the third question, I don’t know if it really typically applies to this, because it doesn’t sound like you’re using debt for these deals. But we usually asked our investors, you know, Robert Kiyosaki has said something that kind of turns people off sometimes that they don’t know what he’s talking about. And what he says is, you know, savers are losers and debtors are winners. And we started to ask him this question because of like, the current state of our economy, right, with high inflation and stuff like that. So, you know, what does that quote mean to someone like yourself? So it’s

 

Mark Podolsky  32:55

a crass quote. But he’s, in a way, correct. It’s not that savers are losers. It’s that savers are missing out on the opportunities in the marketplace. And the people that are using leverage are maximizing those opportunities, you’re also getting the tax savings of it. And you’re also not having your dollars depreciated and depleted by inflation. So if he just explained it a little bit more clearly, why that is, but I don’t understand why he’s saying and he’s trying to jar people out of their comfortable mindset. But absolutely, he’s absolutely correct. Mark

 

Tim Lyons  33:39

Wallace, and this has been a masterclass on how to get into the land flipping game. So I highly, I mean, I can’t wait to re listen to this, because I gotta be honest, I do sometimes have shiny object syndrome, and I’m gonna have to really investigate this, Greg, so just bear with me, right? So but if people want to get in touch with you, Mark and find out more about what you’re doing, how can folks go ahead and do that, I think

 

Mark Podolsky  34:01

the best place to go is the land geek.com. And I think the best way to learn anything is by doing it. So I have a free course that will teach you how to double your money 30 days or less. So if they go to the land geek.com forward slash quick deals, the land geek.com forward slash quick deals, they can start working and learning the land business in a simplified manner, see if it even resonates with them. And then if they want to go deeper, they can. Mark go

 

Tim Lyons  34:32

ahead and just put me on the mailing list. All right, so

 

Greg Lyons  34:36

I knew it. I didn’t do it. I know. Mark before you came on here. I love the website, the land geek.com That’s fantastic. But I already knew you had one convert. So if no one else contacts you, Tim is going to be in line. That’s right.

 

Tim Lyons  34:51

So let’s uh, thank you guys so much for spending another week with the passive income brothers. Thank you Mark for joining us. You just really kind of blew my adores off. So I appreciate you. And also, you guys could leave us a honest rating and review at the end of the show we’d be forever grateful. So, we look forward to seeing you again next week. Thank you for listening to another episode of the passive income brothers podcast. We would be grateful for your support of our podcasts by giving our show a five star rating and review and subscribing to our show on your favorite podcast platform. Don’t forget to take inspired action after listening to this show, so that you can start building out your passive income streams. Finally, head on over to cityside cat.com to connect with us and find out more information about how to get started passively investing in real estate