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All Forum Posts by: Mark Podolsky

Mark Podolsky has started 139 posts and replied 245 times.

@Neil Collette what separates me from everyone else is I'm a full-time land investor. That is, I make my living buying and selling raw land.  Here are my numbers for this year YTD:

https://www.evernote.com/l/AAMTdPAUtB9In5x-fv4I-b0...

So, I certainly wouldn't saturate my own market... And we are priced high enough that we won't saturate our market with students... So I get the fear, but it is not reality.  If and when it does become a problem for my community that we have too many people competing in the same market we will adjust to protect our community.

That being said, the model is simple.  Take the comps and divide by 4.  Get a 300% margin of safety.  Send an offer.  My secret counties list is simply the areas I definitively know deals are being done myself, by my competition or my students. 

Also, the best place to really learn is our free training webinar on our site.  I clearly state in the training my results are not typical and most people that buy any real estate program will probably not make any money whatsoever.

This is work.  I can save you time and help you avoid the mistakes I made, but at the end of the day it may be simple, but it ain't easy.  

David Banales is no longer part of our community and Erik Peterson started with the toolkit, went into one on one coaching and is now coaching others.  You can hear his story on our podcast.

To Engineering Your Success,

Mark

Post: Mark Podolsky Flight School

Mark PodolskyPosted
  • Investor
  • Scottsdale, AZ
  • Posts 281
  • Votes 112

Hey Bill-- Thank you for your interest in Flight School.  

We have several students that you can discuss their current and past experience with and ask all your questions. 

Simply go to our site thelandgeek site and schedule a call and we can provide you the exact information you are looking for so you can make the best possible choice for you.

That being said, I want you to know WHY I created flight school.  

I created flight school with the sole objective of having our clients take action.   We noticed about a 3% success rate with any DIY program, but a 97% success rate with coaching as it provides daily action steps with accountability and an encouraging community.   This seemed like the perfect solution / recipe for teaching success and was inspired by Seth Godin's altmba program. 

As a result, we are so confident in our flight school approach we have a crazy guarantee:

If you can't sell your land within the 60 days of buying it and can show me you're taking all the necessary steps outlined in Flight School, and making a reasonable amount of effort to sell the land, I will buy your land – or promote it to my list – or pass it onto my Land Investor community here at the Land Geek to help you sell it. Plus, I'll pay you a 10% commission for bringing me the deal should I purchase it.

I have a few criteria: (1) This guarantee is only for land you've paid $1500 or less for (2) Before you purchase the property you MUST run the deal before me or a Land Geek Coach and (3) you MUST have followed the due diligence steps included in the Flight School curriculum for this guarantee to be valid. 

Here is a link of a screenshot of what is possible-- https://photos.app.goo.gl/kdRr72Q9b6QEXi9K2

I hope this helps!

To Engineering Your Success,

Mark

PS- to date, we have not had ONE person have to take me up on the guarantee. 

Post: Land Investing & Selling

Mark PodolskyPosted
  • Investor
  • Scottsdale, AZ
  • Posts 281
  • Votes 112

You could take the assessed value and divide by 4 to get a 300% margin of safety... That's what I would do... 

Post: Land flipping software

Mark PodolskyPosted
  • Investor
  • Scottsdale, AZ
  • Posts 281
  • Votes 112

We are 90% automated with out software system for land flipping.  DM me for more info.

Joe and Ben... Can't wait to get Land geeky with all of you in the Rockies. I'm honored and humbled to be sharing the stage with the other speakers and just had @Jeremy Roll on the podcast.  Can't wait to meet everyone in person!  

Post: Raw Land Offer Calculations

Mark PodolskyPosted
  • Investor
  • Scottsdale, AZ
  • Posts 281
  • Votes 112

I look at the lowest comps and divide by 4.  That gives me at least a 300% margin of safety.   

Hope that formula helps.

Post: Raw land - limited supply of good deals?

Mark PodolskyPosted
  • Investor
  • Scottsdale, AZ
  • Posts 281
  • Votes 112

I think this question is brilliant and too many investors don't think through market size until it's too late... 

So, the first variable is size of market. The second variable is players in the market and the third variable will be how much capital you need to deploy to get a ROI on your time and money.

So let's break it down...  There are 3007 counties.  There are over a billion land parcels.  The first variable is we have a massive market of available land to acquire.

The second variable is competition. If you go to a local REIA meeting and there are 100 people at that meeting, 99 of them will be house flippers or wholesalers. You would most likely be the only land investor in that room

So essentially there is virtually no competition especially when you look at the market size. 

The third variable is how much capital you have to deploy.  So, if you can acquire .001% of the market that is a million parcels per year which would be logistically impossible for an investor to buy and sell in one year.  This is why private equity groups and hedge funds literally avoid this market and spend their large amounts of capital in tax liens or larger commercial projects. 

As a result, based on these 3 variables I would argue you would literally run out of money before you run out of deal flow. 

Last year I closed 192 deals and that was working 2 hours per week in the business. 

My advice is to start making offers and if in the first year you don't buy at least 1% of the deals that come across your desk you can post here that the market is now saturated.  However, since 2001, my business has increased each year except for 2010-2011 even though one would think the market would be more competitive as the land investing niche grows in popularity.  

Best of luck and I hope this helps!

Post: Calling Out Mark Podolsky from the Land Geek

Mark PodolskyPosted
  • Investor
  • Scottsdale, AZ
  • Posts 281
  • Votes 112

Since raw land does not contain a tenant raw land investors are exempt from Dodd-Frank, RESPA and the SAFE act. 

Just Google raw land investing and Dodd Frank for more in depth legal advice. 

Post: The Land Geek

Mark PodolskyPosted
  • Investor
  • Scottsdale, AZ
  • Posts 281
  • Votes 112

Dan- 

The real value in the course are the 2 free tickets to Bootcamp and 2 free consulting calls.  

You won't get that with a toolkit resale....

Honestly, you are meant for this business, but skimping on the education piece is penny wise, pound foolish... 

Any home study course is by its nature flawed as it was recorded at one point in time.  The live 2.5 day Bootcamp and consulting calls fill in all the gaps. 

To Engineering Your Success, 

Mark

Post: Newbie introduction- Phoenix AZ

Mark PodolskyPosted
  • Investor
  • Scottsdale, AZ
  • Posts 281
  • Votes 112

Hey @Ursula Gasser I'm in Scottsdale as well.  Welcome!  You are in the right place. For land flipping check out @Seth Williams podcast on BP and his blog at retipster.com. @Steven Butala has a daily podcast on iTunes that will help you as well. Jack Bosch does as well and so do I. Get a feel for the best practices in this niche and I promise you'll be hooked. Good luck!