From a Job to Full-Time Land Investing

Brandon Parker00:03Jamie, welcome to Legends of Land. Jamie from the Land Investing Club. How are you doing today? I'm doing great, Brandon. Thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely. Let's just hop right into your niche. Tell me a little bit about how you approach the land business.

Jamie Goldenberg00:17I think there's a lot of different niches within the niche and mine's evolved, especially over the last six to twelve months. When I first got started, it was a lot of seller finance notes. So basically go in, buy land as cheap as possible, generally 25 to 50% market value. And then I would go resell the property on my own for sale by owner and by posting it different places around the internet. And then I was trying to get finance notes. So basically, you can think about it.

Jamie Goldenberg00:49I was the bank and people would come to me for my land and I would sell mortgages essentially on the properties. My my reasoning for that was when I first got started, it was to ultimately replace my job, which I've been able to do. So now that I have a bunch of notes, it's still a significant part of my business. But my my focus really now is on doing more flips, more cash deals, and looking for, I guess, more home runs versus the getting paid a few $100 a month for X amount of months.

Jamie Goldenberg01:28So that's been a transition for me over the past couple months in kind of my business model, I'd say. But I still do quite a lot of owner financing because I still have a bunch of inventory. I think there's different types of properties that different types... Attract different types of sellers. So I'm always open to doing seller financing, but but right now, I'd say it's been a lot more... I focus in on a lot, like, nicer areas, so I'm very targeted on where I'm going. And so I've done a lot of investing right now in North Carolina where I'm...

Jamie Goldenberg01:58Where I live. And there's lot of golf courses around here. So I'll target golf courses, you can say. And then I get properties and I turn around some of the builders or homeowners or whomever. So it's a little bit different of a business model than I've done over the past, which is more like go buy rural properties. I'm selling to generally a lower socioeconomic end buyer who maybe can't pay $10,000 but can pay me few $100 down, then a few $100 a month for four years or something like that.

Brandon Parker02:27So how do you think about the shift in your business? What were your goals that you were trying to get to that made you change your system?

Jamie Goldenberg02:36Yeah, guess number one, to get rich, just tongue in cheek. But so my goals just changed once I was able to quit my job and kind of stabilize financially with my notes. I don't know. It's funny. I believe in, like, manifesting stuff. And when I when I quit my job, got an opportunity. A guy reached out to me who own... He had, like, 300 properties in Colorado, like cheap rural lots. I ended up buying 50 from him. So I already had a big notes portfolio. And so I was able to sell off those properties.

Jamie Goldenberg03:08I ended up buying some more from him. He actually reached out to me, like, yesterday, so potentially buy some more from him. So I love the notes because they're... It's a way for me to budget month to month of, okay, this is what I'm expecting. I know I can pay my bills. I know I can buy food. So it's been a really effective way for me to transition from being an employee to being an entrepreneur, feeling comfortable doing that, or I'm not eating ramen for lunch. And so now that I've stabilized financially, it's been a lot more of, okay, how do I really scale this and grow it and go after bigger deals?

Jamie Goldenberg03:44I know a lot of people still do. Maybe let's say, for example, you're buying at $25,000 and you're selling for 50,000 There's still a buyer pool who would be willing to do owner financing. But it just happens to be, I think, when you get to $50,000 plus, in my experience, you're starting to find a buyer who's more of a cash buyer. And definitely if you're targeting like developers or homebuilders, they tend to be cash buyers always. So the reason I've transitioned to that is just bigger margins, maybe smaller ROI.

Jamie Goldenberg04:14But, you know, it's really impressive when I can go to my capital partner and say, yeah, I I got so and so a 100% return on their money or whatever versus a 30% return. But that 30% could be $20,000 versus $5,000 when you're investing $2,500 So the kind of transition is I'm just trying to think of ways to I have the notes side of the business. So you think of that as one pillar of the stool. And now the next pillar is, okay, let's build up the cash side, get more inventory on that side where I'm doing cash flips.

Jamie Goldenberg04:46That can really be huge cash injections into the business, which allows me to go find more deals, which allows the business to grow faster and, I think, bigger over time. And I think ultimately, too, beyond the numbers, I just got a little bored of the smaller rural deals. I don't enjoy working with that crowd as much. There's great people I've sold to and bought from, But there's just more headaches when it comes to notes, people default. It's more time intensive. I haven't really been able to outsource that part of the business as far as dealing with the notes, the note holders or the note buyers.

Jamie Goldenberg05:23Yeah, that's been really the transition is to just start growing faster financially. And that to me made the most sense with moving that direction. And there's a lot of different directions you go, but that's what I wanted to do.

Brandon Parker05:36Yeah. That makes sense. And as... I like how you transitioned out of your... You didn't quit your day job or you replaced your day job to make sure that you have that steady stream. What do you think... If you were gonna do it again, you know what you know now, and you were looking to, let's say, scale up as quickly as possible, would you still start with notes to give yourself that stability? Or do you see a path now that you've been through it to to leapfrog some of that time?

Jamie Goldenberg06:04Yeah. I mean, I guess I still would do notes. I think the biggest thing is I would just... I would have gone bigger faster. Once I understood the business model, it was... Which the business model's nutshell is to find deals, right? To find properties that you can buy at wholesale values and then resell them at basically retail. I'd say below a little bit below retail, you want to be competitive so you can get quicker deals in my opinion, quicker flips, excuse me. Because when I first started in real estate and, like, my entrepreneurial journey, I was trying to wholesale.

Jamie Goldenberg06:36I was trying to do house flip houses, and I was really unsuccessful in that for whatever reason. But then once I found land, it was... I was doing the exact same skill set of finding opportunities, but I was actually able to find deals. And so to answer your question, I think the biggest thing I really would have changed would have been to go bigger, faster, and to be more consistent. When I first started, I still had a lot of fear of like, why would people buy land? I've never heard about this.

Jamie Goldenberg07:07I don't see people on TV flipping land, moving dirt. Like, it didn't make sense to me. And it took me a while to feel really confident in this business model despite continuing to have success. I almost didn't believe it. Yeah, interesting.

Brandon Parker07:23So you when you say you would go bigger sooner, what's that actually look like tactically?

Jamie Goldenberg07:30Yeah, so I think I mean, part of it's just strategies I've learned over time. So like the guy I mentioned who had 300 properties, he's actually the the second guy I've bought from who's owned 300 plus properties. So I think for me, like going bigger, faster would have been something like identifying people like that who own a lot of properties who might be willing to sell, number one. Number two would have been doing what I do now, which is like finding nice neighborhoods to go after and being very specific. Because I think when a lot of people get into land, in my opinion, they start at a county level or a state level, and they're just blasting the whole county, the whole state, looking for cheap lots.

Jamie Goldenberg08:10And I think that's great to get started. But I'm much more I'm much more targeted now in what I'm doing. I'm... I focus in on very small neighborhoods, it makes building a list a lot more tedious, a lot more time involved in building that list and getting mail out the door. Mostly send direct mail to find deals. But... So I think to answer your question, like, really specifically, I would have really just been way more specific about targeting high net worth areas and not being so concerned about about the amount of capital I have in my bank account and be more concerned about, okay, what can I where can I go find deals?

Jamie Goldenberg08:47Because if I find a good deal, then it's going work itself out.

Brandon Parker08:52And the capital is generally available through some sort of partner.

Jamie Goldenberg08:56You can do... You can find a capital partner and or you can wholesale it. Mhmm. Mhmm. What do you prefer out of the two? What do you do most most often? So most often, I've done capital partnerships. After I did my first, like, I think, four or five deals, one of my one of my good friends from college who's really successful was talking to me. He's like, dude, can I give you $10,000 and do this with you? Because that's what I started with, was $10,000. And I was like, hell, yeah. Like, I'm literally... My first $10,000 I bought six deals.

Jamie Goldenberg09:29So I was in a really cheap area in California, actually in Kern County near Rosemont. And so when I bought six deals and then I'm out of cash. I had two flips and the other four were finance deals, which is pretty typical to my numbers anyways. But I'm waiting for these finance deals to build up my cash reserves again so I can go buy more properties. So once one of my friends did it, I had a few friends. It had a little waterfall effect where I had a few more friends come in. So I was able to go buy more deals. But... So most of my deals to date have been capital partners.

Jamie Goldenberg09:59I just literally did a wholesale deal that closed on Monday, and that was super nice. I'm $0 in, and it wasn't a huge deal. I just made a quick $5,000, but it was a two weeks. It took me two weeks from getting under contract to getting the $5. So that was like, man, I wanna do more of those deals. I wanna do bigger numbers. But... So I think gonna really depend on the person selling the property to me, on the strategy I use going forward. But I have a pretty big kind of, like, call it, like, investor list now that's grown over the past couple years.

Jamie Goldenberg10:35And I've been more I've been more aware of how I spend my time to try to find investors. And it's been really fun to grow with some of my friends and my family to help. I think that's, like, the coolest part. But I think what is easier and is to do wholesale deals. I think you don't have to deal with other people. You don't have to worry about paying other people out. You don't have to worry about explaining taxes to other people. It's all... You can, I think, have less cooks in the kitchen? It just makes it easier over time.

Brandon Parker11:06What do you think of working with capital partners or kind of one stop shops? A lot of the coaching programs out there have a capital partner who will make a split with you and just... They're a sophisticated investor as opposed to pulling friends and family.

Jamie Goldenberg11:25So thus far, I've I've never worked with another land investor as a capital partner. Mhmm. For example, I don't know if you've heard of Travis King. Mhmm. So he's got, I think, it's land capital where they do that. They, like... They'll come in and fund your deal, and you gotta get a split. And I have a lot of respect for Travis King. I've done his courses and stuff. But I just... It just grew. Like I said, my... After my first friend asked me, I just started talking about it a lot more.

Jamie Goldenberg11:55And especially when you're not in real estate, but even in real estate, you don't meet a lot of land investors when you're out and about. I've gone to real estate conferences and everyone's like, you do what? So it's a unique conversation starter. And so just through that and honestly, through LinkedIn and stuff, I've just been able to find new investors whenever I really needed them. I can't really speak to what it's like working with, like, a sophisticated investor like that, but I do see a lot of value. So, like, I have a couple properties I'm looking at right now that are much higher value, let's say, like, 100,000 plus.

Jamie Goldenberg12:31And those... Just because I have less experience in those type of numbers, I'm following a process that I'm very confident about. But if I do end up needing capital, that might be where I bring in a sophisticated land investing capital partner. I think, one, just to get a second set of eyes on it and just to feel more confident about it. And obviously, if they're coming in and putting in $100, even if I'm... And we sell for 200, let's say, I'm only making 20,000 on that, they're taking a lot more risk than I am.

Jamie Goldenberg13:03And I can see how it all plays out. I can be like, okay. This took me six months to sell. So if I found 10 of these... And then I can start then I can start, I think, making estimates and being like, okay. This is what it's gonna look like in six to twelve months if these are the deals I go after, when I can buy one by myself, etcetera.

Brandon Parker13:26Yeah, that's a I talk with a lot of land investors, I like the idea of using capital always becomes a bottleneck at some point. And I really like the idea of using capital that also has some knowledge of the next level maybe that that you're trying to get to. So Definitely. When people are doing just infill lots, okay, maybe take a little bit of capital and do a $50,000 residential or, excuse me, rural residential and work with a capital partner who knows that market.

Brandon Parker13:57And then you can, like you were saying, start playing around in that area. And then maybe you're trying to do value add subdivides at some point further down. And now you're looking at a capital partner. Maybe they're gonna bring a couple $100 to the table, but they're gonna have all that knowledge too.

Jamie Goldenberg14:13Yeah. I like that as a way. Yeah. Mhmm. And I think too, like, when you... And it's... I think if you're early in the land investing career or seasoned or whatever, it's so easy to find those people. If you just go on Facebook or wherever, you're always gonna be able to find somebody who knows a little bit more than you. And for the most part, people are willing to help, and a lot of it's because they're wanting to make money too. So as long as you can build a level of trust with that person, I think it's totally worth it. I I wouldn't pass up on a deal because you don't have the capital.

Jamie Goldenberg14:45And if you can bring in someone who's a little bit wiser and then you start hearing the questions they're asking, it's maybe those are how I should be thinking about the deal. Like, not only is it flat, is it buildable, is it these, like, surface level due diligence checkpoints. It's okay. What is... What are the subdividing rules here? Would it make sense? Would it... So I think it makes a lot of sense to try to work with those people as much as possible, especially early on. I'm in my early 30s, and I can see myself doing this for the next fifty years.

Jamie Goldenberg15:19So if I can spend the next seven years working with really smart land investors,

Brandon Parker15:26that's only going to make me better 40 on. Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned your investor list. Tell me a little bit about your investor list, your strategy of building that. And it sounds like that's for possible capital partners.

Jamie Goldenberg15:39Yes. So my investor list, it's really just been all... I mean, not all, but mostly organic. It's been a lot of... Started out as friends, then some family. And then when I quit my job, I started posting on LinkedIn just about what I'm doing. And then all of sudden, I just started people reach out to me. Like, hey. This is really interesting. Can I learn more about it? So then I would set up calls, like Zoom type calls, and I would just talk to people about my business, about what I was doing, show them examples.

Jamie Goldenberg16:11And that... So my list has started growing. So now what happens when I find a deal is I make a video. It's normally about five minutes. I explain the investment. I go over the property. I go over comps, etcetera. And then I blast it out to my email list. And it's basically first come, first serve. So it's really made me start thinking a lot more about, like, creating a fund model, which I think would, I think, better serve all of my, like, investor list versus just the one or two who get on the who get on the deal.

Jamie Goldenberg16:47But... Yeah. So it's really just been word-of-mouth. And then when I... Like I said, when I quit my job, it was just like... I went to a real estate radio guys conference. It was a syndication seminar. Like, it's called secrets of successful syndication. And one thing they talked a lot about was building your brand. So what you do with your podcast, I'd say. Mhmm. So to me, when I started thinking about how do I find more investors, which was, like, the reason I went to that conference in general, that was really one of the biggest points that stuck with me.

Jamie Goldenberg17:20So as soon as I was able to quit my job and actually start being very open about what I was doing to, like, the online world, that was like, okay. I gotta be really intentional about this, about what I... How am I gonna attract my avatar, as people like to say. And so I've been experimenting a lot with that and just trying to figure out, okay, what draws people to me? I think a lot of people right now, it's a really interesting time because, you know, we have a lot of crazy market news and are we going to recession?

Jamie Goldenberg17:55Are we not going to recession? And we we saw big drops from, like, the COVID highs in the stock market and stuff. But, yeah, I was still posting, hey, look, I'm still making money even though the stock market's going down. So that was really, I think, right place, right time when I started posting a lot on LinkedIn, which really helped start growing my list.

Brandon Parker18:15Interesting that you're using LinkedIn. I'm not active on LinkedIn, I haven't seen how many land investors are there. A lot of my I haven't seen any. Okay. Cool.

Jamie Goldenberg18:26I'm active on Twitter is where I'm generally active. Yeah. I'm new to I'm new to the X world. So Yeah. There's good stuff on there. People have really quality, concise information. Yeah. I I love X. I mean, it's... Started learning a lot. I mean, it's obviously how you and I connected. Yeah. That's... I've learned, like, the power of of getting on X and not even so much about posting. Like, that I'm still figuring it out, but just like connecting with people like you and finding other land investors and just real estate people and entrepreneurs. It's definitely a good way to build the network.

Brandon Parker19:00Tell me a little bit about your team as far as how you run these operations because you got a lot going on. You're doing land deals. You're also finding investors.

Jamie Goldenberg19:10What... What's that look like? Yeah. So this is probably my biggest area of growth that I could be working on. I've had a couple of transaction coordinators on and off, and it's been hard for me to find a good one. I had a really good one. He was just a college kid, and then he went and studied abroad. So I've still... I've been waiting to find another one like him or waiting for him to come back. Mhmm. Which really is my goal. And that's a big area that I'm trying to figure out is the transaction coordinator side and finding someone who really works with my, like, flow.

Jamie Goldenberg19:44For some reason, I'm less... I don't love the idea of having that one be like an abroad VA. I like having someone who's fluent in English and can talk to people and who's also interested in real estate and potentially growing with me. I structured his, like, his pay. But then I have a bunch of VAs who do a lot of my marketing and all of the paperwork stuff. And I try to use as much, like, software as I can as far as, like, CRMs and things like that just to free up my time.

Jamie Goldenberg20:17Then the other... One of the biggest parts of my team who I don't hear really anybody talking about is I have a business coach. Mhmm. And so he has been, like, influential in my, like, growth just to help me move past, like, doubts, fears, anxieties, you can say, to coming up with, like, business strategies and just really helping keep me accountable. Because I think one of the biggest things I've seen from, like, the average to lower tier land investors to the ones who like, you know, I wanna be that guy.

Jamie Goldenberg20:51It's... They're so consistent. They're consistently finding deals. They're consistently sending mail. And, excuse me, and and I just think, like, when you have somebody who can help keep you accountable as an entrepreneur, like, there's no one else there besides you. If you're not doing the work, no one's doing the work. So that's been really huge for me and, like, my growth. The areas that I wanna outsource the most, like I said, is that transaction coordinator because that frees up a lot of my time. And then I started using tools like Taplio, which is, like, one that will help schedule posts for you and do things like that.

Jamie Goldenberg21:30I know some people hire, like, social media managers, but I think there's other ways to do it. So just trying to figure out tools and tricks to free up the time as much as possible, even like a chat GPT to help come up with ideas, even though it's not someone on my team, but it's definitely freed up time for me.

Brandon Parker21:49Absolutely. What do you use? What tools do you use specifically in your land business, like CRM and any like company wiki or what type of tools have helped you a lot?

Jamie Goldenberg22:03Yeah, to find just download data, I use PRICED, P R Y C D. I used to use Datatree all the time. I've never really messed with PropStream, but I hear good things. And then for, like, quick research, like, alright, caller's calling in. I need to pull up the property or whatever. I use RE grid. It's a... I think it's a $100 per year. And it's really... It's a great little tool. You just punch in, like, the APN or the address, and it takes you right to the property. You can see who the property owner is, and you can see who...

Jamie Goldenberg22:37Just by scrolling over the properties, can see who owns the neighboring properties, which is really nice because that can really help develop your strategy of of, okay. Maybe I'll wholesale this one. For example, today, I got a deal under contract, and the owner on both the north and south lot next to mine was a homebuilder. So I immediately... I got under contract, I immediately found the homebuilder's information, and we already... Now I'm already texting with them. So that ended up being a really great deal. So that was...

Jamie Goldenberg23:08That I really like about RE Grid. And then... So those are, like, my two most useful tools. I use Google Earth and stuff like that to do due diligence. And then I use Rocket Print Mail for mail services. Other tools I use... Oh, Follow-up Boss. That's, like, my CRM for all my leads. And then I still have an Excel sheet with all my properties on it. I've been... That has been an area where I'm like, probably time to update that. But I just have such a system with it that Yeah.

Jamie Goldenberg23:38I just know how it flows. I know how to find properties. And that's just I've always been good with Excel, so it just becomes natural to me at this point. Yeah,

Brandon Parker23:51it's hard to think about. I just rehashed, did like a full refurbishing of all my systems and combined Calendly, Podio, Asana for client management all into Go HighLevel, which is has all of the tools in one place. But it's been an absolute nightmare. I'm going spend the next probably month getting all the integrations back. So I feel you it's like you start out piece together all of these software tools, and then it's hard to transition to something else when you get to a scale where you need to.

Brandon Parker24:27100%.

Jamie Goldenberg24:28It just takes time. Yeah. And it's like, oh, this is going to pay off over the next eleven months. But that first month, man, that's gonna suck.

Brandon Parker24:37Yeah, for sure. It's that whole decision making matrix and being able to focus on the not urgent, but important things. And that's that's the struggle every entrepreneur has is like, do you very dedicated and intentionally make time to things that are very important, but have no urgency to them? Definitely, yeah, that's a constant battle. What's your what's your sales cadence look like? So a lead comes back, you mail out the lead comes back. What's it look like in a quick good deal?

Brandon Parker25:08What's the process look like?

Jamie Goldenberg25:10Yeah, so great question. So lead comes in, phone call, text, email, whatever comes like goes to my landing page, whatever it happens to be. And from there, I... My goal is to always get back to them within forty eight seventy two hours. I used to try to do twenty four, and then I was like, this is impossible, especially when I have a lot of leads coming in. And that's where that Transaction Coordinator can be really useful. So basically it's high level due diligence of, okay, is the property like, what's topography?

Jamie Goldenberg25:43Is it flood zone? Who are the owners? Are there any liens on the property? Are the property taxes paid? And did they accept my offer or not? Any notes from the seller, essentially. So that way when I get back to the seller... And sometimes it's not always perfect like that. A lot of some... I... I'd say probably 40% of the time, it's just seller calls. And especially now that I'm still a finance transaction coordinator, so I'm like, I'm the one answering that phone call. So while I'm on the phone with them, I'm at least high...

Jamie Goldenberg26:17I can high level do some due diligence. But typically... So so ideally, that's what it looks like. Mhmm. You know, I go through that system. I get back to them. I send a lot... Mostly blind offers. And especially once I've hit an area once, I'm like, okay, I know I like this area. I know basically the range I want. Then I can go in and do, like, my second mailer in that area and be like... That way I know when someone's calling in, it's okay. Good deal. Mhmm. But if it's a first mailer and someone's calling in, it's a lot of, hey, Brandon. Oh, which property do you own?

Jamie Goldenberg26:48Awesome. So what movies do you wanna sell? And I'm just trying to learn their story. It's... And trying to learn why they're trying to sell. Trying to, like, just get to know them as much as I can in a five minute call. So that way when I get back to them, because I always tell them like, hey, Brandon, thanks for giving me all that information. By the way, do you own any other properties you're looking to sell? That's always a great question to ask. And then it's like, hey, give me seventy two hours. I'll get back to you. Tell them kind of my process.

Jamie Goldenberg27:19I want to do some due diligence, make sure we didn't miss anything over the computer when we first looked at your property. We're going to talk to our realtor in the area, which I like to talk to one or two realtors to get an opinion, especially if I... If it's a new area. And then I'll get back to you in seventy two hours. And then I'll get back to them. We come to an agreement. I send them a DocuSign contract and then send it over to my closing attorney.

Brandon Parker27:45Okay. Yeah, that's simple. And so it sounds like what I've heard with the successful cadence is similar to what you said there. That initial call is building some rapport and then doing whatever extra due diligence you can do over the phone, getting back to them with an offer and closing the deal. How often would you say that cadence happens versus how often is it you just have followed up via email for six months and someone just out of the blue is, yeah, I'm ready.

Jamie Goldenberg28:16I would say... So if a 100 is all deals closed, I would say probably 70% is those people who call, email, text in Mhmm. And then who we close with, like, within that week, I'd say. You at least get it under contract. And the other 30%, probably 20% of that is, okay. It's taking some time. I have to renegotiate. I made a bad offer initially, so we're working on that.

Jamie Goldenberg28:48Or maybe it's a follow-up just like, hey. Just checking in. Like, today, for example, I texted a woman who my offer was a little bit too high for me. And I was like, hey. If we get this down to 16,000, like, we're good. I text her today. She said, you know what? We are interested. Whatever. So that's probably, like, 20%, which, like... I'll call it, like, a three week plus follow-up text, email, whatever. And then the last 10%, I would put in the bucket of, hey, are you still interested in selling?

Jamie Goldenberg29:20You sent me this letter six months ago or whatever. And it might be less than 10%, but that's what it feels like.

Brandon Parker29:27Okay. And do you do a portion of your negotiations via text, or is that generally saved for a phone conversation? Or what's that usually look like where you have the best success?

Jamie Goldenberg29:41I think it depends on how the seller chooses to communicate with me is how I choose to communicate. Them. I think the best negotiating is over the phone. And then... But a lot of people text nowadays. So I would say most of my deals, it's over the phone. Probably, again, the 75% range. A lot of follow-up I do is via text. If I have a cell phone, I I find that people are, to me at least, I feel like respond more to a text.

Jamie Goldenberg30:15And, generally, we've texted once or twice already. So I think when they open up their text, they see the blue or whatever. So they're like, oh, yeah. We've... I've talked to this guy before, which builds a little level of comfort. But, yeah, most of my negotiating is via phone.

Brandon Parker30:31Okay. Yeah. It seems like there's We're on the phone too. Not everybody is. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of people who are on the I mean, a lot of land and land owners have held the property for a long time and they're used to having their old school or used to having, whereas probably newer landowners or younger landowners are probably more into the texting angle. So I think there's almost like two different types of people like you were saying. So you just bounce around to what they're interested in. Definitely. Think that point is I think most of the landowners

Jamie Goldenberg31:02I see or I buy from are 65 plus, let's call it. Yeah. And I think for those folks, it's a lot more phone call or email, but mostly phone call. And then it's the ones who like, yeah, my parents own this property. I inherited it. Like, those, I think that's probably more of the demographic that's that will respond more to my text messages.

Brandon Parker31:23Yeah. Yeah. And from their point of view, that the ease of texting back and forth, they send a few texts back and forth, sign a piece of paper with you, then they get $20 in their bank account. That's a really that's a nice, seamless way to you for them to to cash on their property. I can see why that's I see why that's so appealing to people. That being said, what do you think the main reason for selling is? There's that one we just talked about where I inherited it. I'm not going to do anything with it. What are other big reasons or what's the most common thing you see?

Brandon Parker31:54The lowest hanging fruit by far,

Jamie Goldenberg31:57at least from my experience, is I've owned the property for ten, twenty plus years. I wanted to build a house out there one day. We never got around to it. Or my husband bought this property and he passed away. Or we're old and we moved to Florida. Like, we're not coming back there. It tends to be we've owned it for so long, we've been paying tax on it forever, it's just like, sure, we'll take your cash. This is almost like we forgot we had it type thing. Had it except for that once or twice a year and we have to go pay taxes on it or pay your HOAs or whatever it is on it.

Jamie Goldenberg32:32So that's definitely, I mean, by far the biggest pool of sellers.

Brandon Parker32:37Which makes a lot of sense, too, because of the built in equity that they have, whereas someone's only owned it for five years and you're trying to give them 50% of the value, they're probably taking a hit on that purchase price, whereas someone's had it for thirty years.

Jamie Goldenberg32:53They're still coming out far ahead and they can just get it off their plate. Definitely. I mean, is that percentage, right? Like, I was talking to a woman the other day and she owns a property with her ex husband still. And she's just obviously we're not building on this anymore. Mhmm. But they're still looking to get closer to what they paid for it. So that's... I can see that being a potential deal, but, like, right now it's not. But, yeah. So what I like to do, my first go through of an area, and this might be unique, but I typically will only target people who've owned a property for ten plus years.

Jamie Goldenberg33:29If I get a deal on that area, then I go back and I just pepper the whole area.

Brandon Parker33:34Mhmm. Mhmm. Okay. What type of volume are you doing as far as sending out mailers? What's that first? Like, as far as, like, units of mail? Yeah.

Jamie Goldenberg33:43I try to do at least 5,000 a month. Okay. How are you doing? As big as some of the big guys, but that's what I've been comfortable with.

Brandon Parker33:53And as you're looking to grow even bigger, You're bringing in some investors, maybe doing some syndication or something like that. Are you will that 5,000 mailers bring the volume for you to grow where you're looking to grow? Or what's the what what are you gonna have to change your outreach methods at some point to scale? Or Okay. Will you be able to do And what's your thoughts on that? I think

Jamie Goldenberg34:22talking to some of the guys who I would say are like my north stars in this business, they're sending out, I'd say at least, like, 20,000 a month to get to some points where I wanna get to. I mean, it just depends. Like, I just end up 5,000, and, like, my estimated return on that is really high. Like, it's one of my... It's a great mailer. This first... Like, this mailer to go around. So if every mailer could be like this last one I sent, would send out 5,000 every month, and that'd be cool.

Jamie Goldenberg34:58But, yeah, I think, like, ultimately... And especially as you start targeting, like, higher value properties, the name of the game is just you got to send out more to find it. So I anticipate my growth to eventually be like 20,000 a month, if not more.

Brandon Parker35:16Yeah. I've talked to some large land investors and a lot of times, like where it ends up going to keep going up this up this scaling ladder. What I've seen is at the highest levels, they're sending out giant text blasts, so 40 or 50,000 people. Then that data is refined down to a little bit smaller amount of data. They're cold calling the same area, but refined data. Yeah. And then that data is narrowed down a little bit more and then they're doing a mailing to that same area.

Brandon Parker35:52So by the time they mailed, maybe they're down to 15,000 mailers. And so they're starting with a large funnel with the cheapest cost and then and working their way down the funnel and doing multiple types of deals as well. So they're doing the flips to keep their team actively and their cash flow active, and then also doing maybe value add subdivides where their the deal might take a year or two to get through, but it's a it's a giant deal. Yeah. And it's just interesting to see the...

Brandon Parker36:26What the big teams are doing

Jamie Goldenberg36:28100%. You head that direction. Yeah, I think I've heard a lot of people, and you've probably talked to more than I have, who have started going away from texting. Have you seen that trend just because of the regulations and things around it? That makes a lot of sense to me, that type of strategy.

Brandon Parker36:49Yeah, we do cold calling. And so we've seen a lot of people go away from texting and go directly to cold calling as the top of their funnel. And, yeah, it's something where texting, a lot of regulations popped in, but it seems that they've gotten... The texting companies have gotten it figured out. They have their... They've got their workarounds in place now. It's just not as effective as it was because I think that you need people to opt in. You need to follow some specific guidelines with what message... What you can put in your messages.

Brandon Parker37:21So, yeah, it's become less effective. It's interesting. So you were telling me about your business coach, which is a very interesting part of the process to me. How often do you meet with them? What do you talk about? Is it like a mindset coach, or is this entrepreneur specific or land specific? Like, how does that work?

Jamie Goldenberg37:40Yeah. It's more a combination of entrepreneur slash mindset, I'd say. Mhmm. I meet with him once a week, typically Monday mornings. And it's just been... I'd say the beginning of it was a lot more mindset than I expected. I was like figuring out what drives me, like, when I'm experiencing, like, lower levels of energy, let's call it, Like, what's going on there? Like, how do I stay self motivated and keep good momentum, not let bad momentum come in?

Jamie Goldenberg38:17Or if it is, like how to like move quicker out of that. And I think talking to lot of entrepreneurs in general, a lot of us feel like we're, like, constantly behind and trying to catch up. And so my coach has been really helpful, I think, developing, like, a lot of self awareness. Like, I thought I was a very aware person, but I've even learned just a lot about myself in this process. And then... So that was, like, I think a lot of the beginning conversations we had. And then meanwhile, we do a lot of, like, strategy tactics, OKRs, and tracking how we're doing and just making sure that I'm moving in the direction I want to be doing.

Jamie Goldenberg38:56And you can't really see if there's, a whiteboard, like, right here. Okay. So that's Yeah. I have a big believer. One of my my my biggest influence or, like, my my biggest role model in the world, hands down, is a guy named Jesse Itzler,

Brandon Parker39:14if you've heard of him. I haven't. I'll write that down. How do you spell the last name? I t...

Jamie Goldenberg39:20It's... So I t z l e r, I think. Cool. So his big message is, let's build your life resume. So this big calendar I have right behind me is one of his products. So he's a big believer of just planning out. If you want something to happen in your life, you gotta plan it, you gotta execute it. And so his whole thing is life's more than just about work, I'd say, in, like, nutshell. It's, like, his message. And so beyond just, like, work related, my coach, like, we... He's helped me a lot of, like, my personal development type goals and really start moving towards those a lot more efficiently than I ever have before, I'd say.

Jamie Goldenberg39:59So, like, that whiteboard right there, like, that is, like, a five year plan of, here's different facets of my life from, like, career to fitness to personal to relationship to family that I wanna accomplish, like, this year, next year, etcetera. So when we meet on Monday or at the end of the month, we're always going over my OKRs. And my OKRs all line up to those goals ultimately. So it's been really helpful to have... I like structure. And I think you...

Jamie Goldenberg40:29As you probably know, like, as an entrepreneur, there's... It is hard to always have structure in your life. So it's been a really awesome way for me to be like, no. Like, I am moving in the right direction of the life I wanna be living. And being an entrepreneur and building a successful business and ultimately being wealthy is part of that journey for me. But it's only part of the journey for me. I'm really big into fitness. I got really into marathons. This year, my big fitness goals, I'm doing my first Ironman.

Jamie Goldenberg40:59So Oh, damn. So doing or half Ironman is 70.3. So Okay. Essentially doing things like that, that, like, when I was, like, in my twenties, oh, that'd be really cool to do. I'm about to turn 32. And it's when I turn 30, it's like, I always knew I could run a marathon, I never actually did it. So was like, now I started putting this on the calendar, started executing on those. And so this last year was to do my first, like, ultra marathon, which is a 31 mile run. So it was like doing things like that where it's like those are like more life resume things, not less like work resume things, or like things that are really also important to me and give me a lot of energy.

Jamie Goldenberg41:35So anyways, like that's like where my coach has really been extremely impactful on my life, both in work and my business, but also outside of that. And he's a really successful guy himself. He has done a bunch of Century twenty one franchises and then retired from that and started doing coaching. I've known him for a really long time. And then I started working with him about five months ago, five, six months ago.

Jamie Goldenberg42:06And it's been already in that timeframe, I've had a lot more clarity and a lot more structure in moving towards my goals and just helps me be more consistent, really. Just like, oh, I want to be sending out 5,000 units a month. Last month, sent out eight. So it just keeps me accountable on my actions. When I'm not doing it, he calls me on my shit.

Brandon Parker42:24Yeah. That's great. It's wild how important the mindset is for entrepreneurs. It can be a lonely thing. It can be something where, like for me, where I'm always questioning, am I far enough? Am I hitting my goals? Like you just get so enveloped in like growing this giant thing. And it looks like you're never going to get there. If you're not measuring like those little steps, I don't have any. So long story short, I gave myself small little metrics that I can measure.

Brandon Parker42:56So just so I can tell myself, okay, dude, you can, you're doing the right thing. You're moving at the right pace. You can relax. You can go to sleep. Just chill out. There's a really cool tool that I used. It's not even a tool, but similar to you, you have this five or ten year plan, and then breaking that down into weekly or quarterly, monthly goals. I used chat GTP. I put it in. Here's my... Here's where I wanna be in five years in all these different categories, break it down to yearly goals, then break it down to quarterly goals, then broke it down to monthly goals.

Brandon Parker43:32So on a monthly basis, can look at my goals and it's okay. Did you onboard two more clients this month? You onboarded three. You're doing wonderful. Whereas maybe I onboarded three clients in a month and I'd be sitting there, God, I wish I was growing faster. But like, it helps me being able to measure it and be like, just keep taking baby steps and stop putting so much pressure on yourself. Having that awareness

Jamie Goldenberg43:58is a powerful thing. So I totally agree. Yeah, it's been nice. Like you said, I think at the end of the day, I saw a video there, Dave, like this guy's like being successful, like 90% of the time, people who are successful, 90% of the time they feel like they're behind in life. Yeah. It's 8%, you feel like you're moving in the right direction. And there's 2% where you're like, all right, I'm making it, I am doing it. It was like, it's such a small percentage of your time where Hell yeah, we're moving the right direction.

Jamie Goldenberg44:30So what's been really nice about tracking, like you're talking about, I can look back and see my wins week by week, month by month. I can see that I'm moving towards these goals. Can see... Doesn't make me feel like I'm not behind because I always feel that way. But but it is a nice tool to be like... Just to be like, okay. No. This is working. A big thing for me was, like, quitting my job. It's even though I feel like I'm behind in life or where I want to be like wealth wise or whatever, it's like, no, dude.

Jamie Goldenberg45:02Like, you said three years ago, four years ago, you wanted to quit your job and like, you did it. Yeah. It's like, give yourself some time. You're gonna, you've already done your, most people can't do what you just did, whether it's, you know, mentally or just because they can't come up with an idea or whatever. It's now it's just like, keep moving. Like, it's all good.

Brandon Parker45:22Yeah, that's it's there's not a lot of people who, like you're saying, end up quitting their job, up going out on their own, creating a business. It's yeah, so it becomes this it's such a mental game. Yeah. Impressive that you're running ultra marathons too. That's wild. I got my I got my Garmin watch right here, so I'm I'm on... I've got some of those goals set up as well. That's really cool. So you... What's the furthest you ran? You did that 31 mile? Yeah. Furthest I've ran. I've done some longer, like, hikes. Okay. But,

Jamie Goldenberg45:52yeah, actually, like, I I walked some of that 31 miles, to be honest. But but, so my longest I've ever gone was, like, 38 miles on a, like, a one day hike. So the long distance, I really enjoy. I'm trying to figure out if it's what I want to keep doing. Just got towards the end of this year, started getting some injuries. So I started to swim a lot more and bike So a lot that's why was like, you know what? Let's go. Let's train to do an Ironman. But this year we'll just do a half. Because open water swimming is a scary thing for me, so I got to figure that one out before I decide to go swim two miles in the water.

Brandon Parker46:25Yeah, that swim part is that's like a daunting swimming two miles. That's no joke, especially open water. I guess you'd be in the ocean also, right? Yeah.

Jamie Goldenberg46:35The one I signed up for is in Wilmington, North Carolina. Yeah. So that one, I think it's not in the ocean, but it's in the... I forget what it's called, but it feeds into the ocean eventually.

Brandon Parker46:44Yeah. If you can swim in the ocean, do a marathon or a Ironman, then yeah, you'll be fine as an entrepreneur right now, I'm sure. That's what

Jamie Goldenberg46:55I feel like too. Running's definitely been good mindset training.

Brandon Parker47:00Yeah. The running for me is I'll sit at my computer, just get in the zone and grind all day, and then I'm done. And my mind is like buzzing. And then I'll go on just a long run through the forest and just, it feels like it just turns the volume down. It's like everything just comes back to baseline a little bit. So it feels good. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about your coaching because I know that you do. Is it land coaching specifically you do? Do you mix in some of the mindset things or what's that look like for you?

Jamie Goldenberg47:28Yeah. So most of the coaching is just based around land. Again, it's really just been organic. After my first year of land investing, I just made a Facebook post. Hey, like, is what I've been doing, and I've made, like, an extra, like, $100,000. And then the next year, I made, like, a really similar post. So after year two of doing that, people reached out to me. I, like, never post on Facebook. So it was literally two... Like, my two... My last two posts were, those two posts. So then as the people start reaching out to me, and and then I was like, no.

Jamie Goldenberg48:02Like, what if I just build a little coaching program? There's so many out there. Like, I'll just build a little one that's gonna help people just learn how to start the business. Very simple, very basic. Like, here's the business model. Here's the exact steps that I would take to start. So I started doing that. I had a few people sign up for it. And then I did... After that, I did some more like one on one coaching. Like, you got the course, but you also got three months of us talking and helping really hold your hand through the process. Like when deals come in, I'm gonna review them for you and or with you.

Jamie Goldenberg48:35And so that's how it's just grown organically. And it's a little part of my business. It's fun to do. And I've been back and forth on, like, what I wanna do with it now that I've had a dozen or so students plus go through it. And so it's... Is it something I'm gonna commit my full time to, to grow that part of my business? I definitely, I work on it like probably once a quarter to make it a little bit better, update it with new tactics and things like that. But my main part of my business is buying and selling land. But I do really enjoy getting to see success.

Jamie Goldenberg49:07Like my student, one of my students Saturday, he just got his first couple of deals and he's pretty pumped. So that was pretty cool to watch him go through that process. It's relatively affordable, I think, compared to a lot of other programs. Yeah. So that's what I do. I'd say it's really, like, simple. I'd say it's like I've done a lot of the land courses online. So it's based on a lot of what I've learned, obviously. It's, 10 modules, really basic, give you a lot of the tools that I use and some structure. And then it's... Hey.

Jamie Goldenberg49:37Let's... It basically prepares you to send your first mailer and then how to close on deals and then how to sell those. So it's basically the business model, right, in a nutshell. It's not too dynamic as far as different strategies and and... But that's where I think the one on one part, like, you get a little more of that flavor. Okay. Like, once you click there, you wanna go to now it's okay. Here's how I think about it. And what are your thoughts and things like that. But it's been enjoyable. Like I said, I think I've had 15 or so students go through it, and yeah, 16 actually, and then some of them stick with it, some of them don't.

Jamie Goldenberg50:13Mhmm. Mhmm. It's all friends basically that have gone through it.

Brandon Parker50:17Are you actively taking students? If someone sees this, would they reach out to you? Are you accepting students currently? So the student I have now, he he's actually one of my investors friends.

Jamie Goldenberg50:29Okay. Interesting. So he was like, hey, like, have a friend who's really interested in what you're doing. So when we first talked, I thought he wanted to be like an investor. He's like, oh, I wanna do what you're doing. I'm like, oh, that's awesome. I actually have a structure already in place. And he's awesome. He's actually probably my best student I've ever had. Nice, nice. It's like the most serious person I've ever met as far as it goes to this. Yeah, so if someone would reach out, I'm happy to talk with anybody and happy to help me get started and just to... I mean, investing has changed my life, no doubt. And it's such a low barrier to entry compared to a lot of other parts of real estate.

Jamie Goldenberg51:03And I think there's just so much possibility of whether you want it to be your full time gig or you want to make some extra money. Because part of my story I didn't really talk about was, like, one of reasons I got into real estate in general was I just never really believed in... My first job was working in finance. And so I'm onboarding all these clients and I just started realizing like, wow, all the people who are like really wealthy own their own business. And not that other people don't have wealth who worked full time and did a good job saving, whatever.

Jamie Goldenberg51:36But then I also started learning that, and you can Google this, but, you know, baby boomers, their number one fear is outliving their money. So I was like, no, this is the first generation really to have 401ks and IRAs, and their biggest fear is outliving their money. That plan doesn't make sense to me. Like, why would I do that? Meanwhile, I'm seeing all these people I'm bringing on who have so much money and they all own their own business. And my whole point of saying that was like, I got to figure out something that's going to help make me extra money. And that's one of the reasons that got me into real estate was like, okay, this creates cash flow.

Jamie Goldenberg52:07This can build wealth. It builds a skill. And I don't have to be so reliant on the stock market, which I have zero control in.

Brandon Parker52:15Mhmm. Mhmm. I had a similar journey. I started as a real estate agent. I flipped houses and just did single family rentals, did that whole thing. And when I found the land, it was like the pieces that I didn't like about real estate weren't there. It's just like to me, it was just the fun part. Was like, Oh, I can I don't have to worry about termites and foundation inspections, or I just get to do the wheeling and dealing and they do due diligence still? But there's just less there without the house there.

Brandon Parker52:48There's less moving parts. And for me, it made it so much more fun and similar.

Jamie Goldenberg52:53Yeah. So

Brandon Parker52:57where can people find you? What's the best way to get in touch with Someone wants to just talk to you about land, someone wants to maybe become an investor

Jamie Goldenberg53:05for you, or someone wants to be a student. What's the best way to find you? Yeah. I'd say the easiest way is probably now an x. I think my handle is the land guy. I think it's the land underscore guy. And then you can reach out to at LinkedIn. My name is Jamie Goldenberg. And then you Google the land investing club. That'll take you to my, like, teachable page. And, yeah, that's probably the easiest way is to get ahold of me.

Brandon Parker53:28You're crushing it, Jamie. It was great to get to pick your brain and learn more about land from you. I'm sure, me and you will cross paths in the future here. That's it, man. I appreciate it. Alright. See you later. Bye.