Ann + Mary Danielson: Run a Lean Land Business

Brandon Parker00:00Welcome to the Legends of Land show today, my friends. We have Anne and Mary Danielson on to talk about their land business. So welcome to the show, both of you. Wonderful to meet you. And tell me what's unique about your land business.

Ann Danielson00:14Hi, Brandon. Well, I'm Anne and my sister is Mary. So that's a little bit unique. You hear a lot of brothers in the land business, but we're a couple of sisters in the land business. What's unique about us, I think, is that we're probably one of the smallest operations doing not bigger deals, but we've always started out that way. So from the beginning, we've just tried to keep ourselves really lean and the two of us do a lot of the work that so many people automate ourselves and our interactions with sellers and brokers and from top to bottom, we're only on the acquisition side but all of our relationships.

Ann Danielson00:56And so I think at least for a seller that stands out for them, because they feel like even on our marketing will say, you're only going to ever talk to Anne or Mary. And so I guess that's probably a little bit different than other people. And that's pretty much the case. We just have two VAs and they only do map scrubbing for us, but everything else is just the Danielson sisters. So how do you split up your roles with the rest of the tasks? Well, Mary, why don't you go ahead since you can introduce yourself and talk about what you do on your end, the most I'm important

Mary Danielson01:34Mary Danielson. I'm the little sister. I live in Colorado. And so Anne and I divvy up the roles and she does a lot of the data and comping and all the paperwork basically and scrubbing data. And I do more speaking with the sellers and the county and realtors and closings. So that's how we split it up. Go ahead, Anne, you're better at your part of it.

Mary Danielson02:06Yeah, I do. Doing the details. Part that much.

Ann Danielson02:10Yeah, we're, we are very much in our own lane and you I'm in The Philippines. So all of my tests are asynchronous. So everything that's computer I do with the only person I talk to on the phone ever is Mary. And so that's great because she just knows anything that's a call to a county or a seller or a broker or a surveyor, all of those things are what she does. So I mean, anything that happens during business hours, these are not business hours. I think it's 5AM here. I can do anything that's not business hours. Anything that's business hours is Mary's lane.

Mary Danielson02:43I would also say,

Ann Danielson02:45if you have to qualify us, I would say I'm the visionary and Mary is the integrator. If you want to talk Kendall speak, I suppose.

Brandon Parker02:54I like that. I like that. That's actually part of what I was gonna ask about is who's the visionary and implementer and if that was because of the time zones that you're only doing async stuff, or is... What's the... How much of that base... Is based on time zones and how much of your tasks are based on the async necessity?

Ann Danielson03:13I think it's pretty natural, actually. Mary is a a great people person, and she's patient, and she's a communicator, and she's kind. And I'm not, I'm kind. I'm kind, but I'm an art teacher. I still have my W2. And so I teach at an international school here. And so I really like looking at big problems and creative ways to approach them. And I've done a lot of design thinking through my day job and my degrees.

Ann Danielson03:45And so I do really coming from a place of the user experience and just, yeah, I love solving big problems.

Mary Danielson03:54And for me, I really like talking with people. I hear a lot on a lot of other podcasts that it's a lonely job and it can be on days if you're not getting a hold of anybody, but I really enjoy hearing the stories of the land and making the connection with the sellers. So that's just basically we're in our lanes because of our personalities.

Brandon Parker04:15Yeah. So, I mean, I can see why you are able to not hire as many VAs, and you're able to do stuff. You have a perfect little team going there. That's cool. And are your VAs in The Philippines, and how

Ann Danielson04:28long have you had them, and how's your training with that? And tell me a little bit about how you work with the VAs. Actually, those have been very recent hires. Would say it's maybe been three months or so, right there? Yep. Yep. They are here in The Philippines, which is actually, they are the people that I text with because we're awake at the same time. And so we just jump on WhatsApp mostly and send each other voice texts or messages that way. To get them trained, I used a Loom video and I just showed them exactly what the task was for us. It was very clear cut.

Ann Danielson04:59We knew what we wanted. We wanted to switch to a sniper approach for finding subdivides. And so even though there is software out there that can find the, whether or not there's access in the wetlands and all of that, we had specific things that we needed to consider for our market. We work in Tennessee and then particularly in East Tennessee, it gets a little crazy. So we wanted someone to just run through the maps and they've been amazing. I can't actually believe how quickly they're able to scrub those maps.

Ann Danielson05:32And it takes about a minute for them to look at the road access, the wetlands. They even will make a note if there's a, if the transmission line really seems to be impacting how a split might be able to happen. So yeah, so they get our lists about two months before we want them and then they just plug away and yeah, that's it. That's the only thing we use the VAs for.

Brandon Parker05:58And when you say sniper approach, so you're getting real specific East Tennessee, and you're looking for a certain acreage range, road access, wetlands, transmission lines, specifically things that you think you can subdivide. And then that's all you're call... Calling. And so that's where your land business is now. Did it evolve from somewhere else? Or... Yeah. How'd you start and how'd you get here?

Ann Danielson06:23Yeah. I'd say we do all of Tennessee, but East Tennessee is challenging with the Smoky Mountains. So that's where their job is a lot more difficult. So out in the Western areas, it's more farmland and flat and the properties may or may not look like more rectangular. And so yeah, we will, we do the whole state. Jumped into subdivide. We did do simple splits for the first year. And then we were really, we just happened upon our first subdivide.

Ann Danielson06:56We, when we got it, we thought, oh geez, this is, it was fan shaped. And instead of the, you know, the fan, the large outside perimeter was all a road. And so we thought, oh, this is great road access. And it was nice rolling terrain and an easy county to work with. And so we thought, let's just try a split and it went great. So, and we just stuck with it. It's not that we don't do splits, we definitely do, but we love the subdivides. And actually now we've just differentiated our marketing. So if we're marketing to a subdivide, we just do it differently than if it's a straight flip property.

Brandon Parker07:32How do you market to flips versus subdivides? And how do you bring those warm leads in? That is with mail and the subdivides

Ann Danielson07:42get an offer. That's a two page letter and a nice envelope and proper, it's a little bit, not formal in language. I think we're quite folksy and comfortable in our, in the way that we, in our tone, in how we approach sellers with both mailers, but we break down like a tiered offer. So a cash offer and owner finance, and then a partner with us. So get the offer price and then post split, we can figure out a percentage of the post split cost after the project wraps.

Brandon Parker08:16That's an interesting angle. I don't hear that much. So are all those offers on the mailer that you send out, the cash offers, owner financing offer, and the partner with us, or is it just one price and then they have all those options of how to swing it?

Ann Danielson08:30Actually, on those, we don't put a price because they just take more time and we wanna be able to give them a thoughtful number, not just a blind offer number. And so the three options are on it, but there isn't a number on that letter.

Brandon Parker08:49What do you think the drawback to people doing the partner with us? It seems like that would be an obvious option for most people. Why do people choose not to do that?

Ann Danielson09:00Well, I think it's a little bit unconventional. So if they aren't familiar with it or it sounds a little strange or they just don't understand it, I think it could be intimidating. Mary does a pretty awesome job of talking it through, actually, she can speak to that, but then the other piece would be the time factor. So if you figure, I think on our letter, it says it'll take between twelve and eighteen months for that project to finish. If it's somebody who just wants a cash offer because they have another purchase and they need to move capital to another area or whatever, then it wouldn't be a good fit for them.

Mary Danielson09:41Today, for example, I had a call for a property and he was asking a lot of money and he wants to turn it into commercial property. I said, well, that's fine. What's your asking price? And it was pretty high. And I said, oh, it sounds like that's after the entitlements. So, and I just asked him, are you familiar with how this process works? And he said, well, not really. And I said, okay, well, sometimes we partner with people. And so he was open to it and I just straight up asked him instead of beating around the bush, do you need the money now?

Mary Danielson10:14Because if you do, then we won't be able to do this. But if you don't, we're definitely willing to drop the plan for you if you're interested, because it takes a long time to do the research and drop the plan and see if it's even worth it for us. But I think probably the one reason people don't wanna do it is they don't fully understand it. So I'm trying to get better. I mean, it's not like an opportunity that comes along every day, but I'm trying to like figure out what's the best way to break it down in steps for them so that it's not overwhelming and what are you talking about?

Mary Danielson10:45Because I know that's how I would feel if somebody was like, wait, I was hoping you'd just give me a number and done. So this guy has really opened to it. So tonight we'll take a closer look and see if it's something that we wanna take on. And he's easy to work with. But there's been other ones that are like, nah, I'll just do it myself. We're hoping they'll come back to us because it's not just like that easy to do.

Brandon Parker11:10Yeah. That makes sense because I guess the main selling point for getting a deal on a flip is how quickly and easily you can do it and that they can have cash in hand in thirty or sixty days. And so, yeah, you throw that out the window for this other idea. But that's really interesting. Can you put some some numbers around maybe even just a hypothetical? Let's say it's a 50 acres, a $100,000. They're wanting $5 an acre. Like, what type of offer might you make someone? Or you can talk about, if you want about the deal you're currently doing, but what are the percentages and splits look like? What might a deal look like?

Ann Danielson11:41Partner with us. Yeah. I think the offer would be close to... The cash offer would be close to what all of us would do, like 50% or maybe in this case, maybe 60, it depends on if it's a higher priced property, maybe 60%, 70%. And then I have a table that I use when I underwrite for funding someone else's deal. So I actually used that table and transferred it over for this. So just, excuse me, for the value adds, what will the surveyor cost?

Ann Danielson12:14What will the prep test run? Are we adding any tabs? Those kinds of things, those costs. And so once we look at the base price, take away the costs, figure out what the profit would be, and then the conversation would be, okay, so on top of the offer, the cash offer, what would the split need to look like? And then that would have to be a one on one negotiation with the seller. And then the cut, our cut would need to make sense for the amount of time we put into the project.

Ann Danielson12:45And then understanding that we haven't put any of our initial capital in, but we do cover the value adds. And that's the same for, if we fund a deal we just have to be ready with whatever it's going to cost to get the property split or in this case entitled.

Brandon Parker13:02Right. Very unique.

Mary Danielson13:04Yeah. And this guy did say today, I forgot to mention, he's I can't really partner with you. I don't have any money. And I'm like, well, you do have money because your land is worth money and we will do the paying for all the, sorry, buying all the survey and extra work that needs to be done. We take care of that. So your money comes from the land and we'll pay you at So the he was like, oh, okay. So this one could work. We'll see.

Brandon Parker13:36Yeah, that's a great angle. Where do you vote? How did you choose Tennessee? I think you're from Minnesota. Is that right? How'd you land in Tennessee? Minnesota.

Mary Danielson13:46We're from Wisconsin.

Brandon Parker13:47Oh, sorry. Oh my gosh, how disrespectful.

Mary Danielson13:50I'll take this one. Aunt asked me if I wanted to do this and then she's okay, where are we gonna mail? And so we originally said I currently live in Colorado. So Colorado, Wisconsin. And then we're like, So I asked my nine year old son, seven at the time who had some buddies down the road that were only here in the summer from Tennessee and they're quite a bit older than him. And so he just loved playing with them and he's like Tennessee. And I'm like Tennessee, Anne, here we are. That's

Ann Danielson14:19awesome. Well, and then after that I looked and I said, oh, okay, there's, it was great from a tax perspective and business friendly. And we were, I mean, we find the topography appealing and beautiful, so that helps us. And then we just looked at migration patterns and markets and things. Then we said, yeah, let's go for it. But yeah, the initial idea came from Graham, her youngest son, saying, Hey, let's do Tennessee.

Brandon Parker14:43Think Harder there's too, because you got a lot of states. Yeah. And I think there's definitely something to just being interested in the area that you're going to be researching and talking about property in. It's just places that you might wanna have property yourself is, I think there's a big draw there. I mean, that's part of the fun of land. It might as well be fun. So... Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And do you still have family in Wisconsin? You still go back there often or are you relocated?

Ann Danielson15:10We do. We have family in Wisconsin, friends in Wisconsin, and my husband and I have a house in Madison. We spend our summers there because our girls, we've always been, we've been overseas now for twenty three years. And so our daughters have never lived in America. And so our time, our summers in medicine are really important so that they can not feel like they're lying when they say they're American and they can somewhat acclimate it. So when they go to university in a couple of years there, they can hopefully fit in.

Brandon Parker15:40Yeah. How did you decide to move abroad? And did you move straight to The Philippines or did you go somewhere else and land in The Philippines? What's that look like?

Ann Danielson15:49My husband and I are both teachers and we knew we wanted to get out of Wisconsin mostly because of the winters. And so we went to California first and then we went to Malaysia. That was for three years. The reason we went overseas is because if you work at the major international school of that country, it's a great package and the students are highly educated and the parents are super pro education and it's a really diverse community. Like our school has 120 nationalities represented.

Ann Danielson16:21So yeah, was in Malaysia and then Shanghai, China, and then Ghana, and then now we've been five years here in The Philippines. So same story at all of the schools, it's all an independent application process and everything. You just recruit when you're ready to go and then you move on to the next country.

Brandon Parker16:41Your kids must be getting quite an experience, getting to travel around like that, Yeah,

Ann Danielson16:47they really are. And our eldest got super, most of her childhood was in Shanghai, China. We were there thirteen years. And so her Chinese is really good and she's actually choosing to do her like IB thesis, like the international baccalaureate. It's like the AP, but for the whole world. And she's doing it in Chinese. So I'm really proud of her and I think it's cool.

Brandon Parker17:10That's great. That's cool. And how about you, Mary? How'd you end up in Colorado? Were you leaving for the winters too?

Mary Danielson17:17My husband had received a couple requests to come for interviews in Colorado for his job. And so I was like, well, if we're gonna go now's the time because our children were still pretty young and so we weren't gonna uproot them from their friends too much. So now we're here and then my hope is that in five years we can move to Tennessee because this job is there as well. So

Brandon Parker17:41that's the plan for now. Cool. Okay. So there's a little bit of extra draw to Tennessee there. Maybe you guys will have a 40 acres somewhere cool by then or something. Yes. I hope so. Nice. Nice. So talk about how your business process has evolved because you started with simple things like Google Sheets, and then you've gotten into, obviously, more complex systems. And talk just however you'd like to about your operations and what goes on behind the scenes.

Ann Danielson18:11Okay. That's Mylene. Yeah. We did start out using Excel and Google Sheets and shared docs and all those things for probably, oh, I'd say six or eight months. And then when the leads started coming in and we felt like it was too much to manage on my end. And I think I was actually not able to communicate to Mary in a way that I needed to. We knew that it was time for a CRM And we did jump onto the Pebble wagon soon after Pebble started actually.

Ann Danielson18:45And so that was easy to start and Mary, especially now she's pretty good on the computer. Then she wasn't just techy, but that was an easy transition for her to make. So our process now is we, if it's under 500 mailers, we mail through Pebble. If it's over 500, we go through Rocket Print and we still upload or listen everything to Pebble, but we'll mail through Rocket Print and let's see. Oh, same with the, we do use, well, we're a guinea pig in our buddies, cold calling startup.

Ann Danielson19:21And so we do, we load up our cold calling lists there as well. But that's also something that is new to us. Up until very recently, we've only done mail.

Brandon Parker19:35Have you seen enough with the cold calling and mailers to know conversion rates or numbers around that?

Ann Danielson19:46I don't know. It's such a it's so tricky to understand. I mean, I think we would definitely say, I think most people would that male leads convert more often, But that's purchased

Mary Danielson20:03from cold calling, which we just started pretty much in January. Right. Like we're two week closed on today. We're from cold calls, I believe.

Brandon Parker20:12Nice. Yeah. I think they're... So male people are taking some sort of initiative before you talk to them. They're seeing it, they're taking this big step to call back or contact you, which is, filters them a bunch where cold calling, they might answer, and they might passively say, yeah. I'm interested. And then you're, again, gonna be probably outbound calling them. So, yeah, there's a... There's definitely a natural filter there. So interesting. Well, I'd love to hear how your cold calling goes as you continue to do that. What do you like about it versus mailers, or why did you add it?

Brandon Parker20:45Going on a

Mary Danielson20:47really long holiday.

Brandon Parker20:49And

Ann Danielson20:52Mary had a busy month as well, and so we wanted to take a month off of mailing and I didn't have time to prep it or do it, but I didn't want to drop the ball entirely. So we said, let's just moving forward, keep moving the needle without us having me because I didn't have time to get the mail out. So it was a little bit of a circumstance, but it's worth, I think it's worth sticking with. We wouldn't do it entirely. I think any one marketing channel in isolation is risky, and it's always good to have multiple streams of income or income.

Ann Danielson21:31That's true too. Multiple streams of money.

Brandon Parker21:35Yeah. There's something interesting about going on vacation. And if you're gonna be gone for four months, there's this big push right before... And this has happened to me a lot of times. Right before I go, it's okay. I need to get all these things nailed down so they can survive while I'm gone, and then it ends up improving my business. And it's... So it's like I need to... Sometimes I think I need to go on vacation more so I can get some big changes. That's for sure. Well,

Mary Danielson22:00and I think because it was new to us too while she was on vacation, obviously with the cold calls coming in, there's more leads. So I think we ended up being a little bit more busy than she probably would have liked for her vacation because we get excited when we get a lead and we wanna dive into it. And so I think, I mean, it was fine because obviously I could do what I needed to do. And basically I'm just trying to get ahold of them again to make sure that they do wanna sell and then making sure that we actually are interested in the property.

Mary Danielson22:31But it was funny. I'm like, we have six leads and she's, oh great, we're going scuba diving today or whatever. I was like, oh, okay.

Brandon Parker22:39Did you come up with any creative solutions while you're like under the ocean? Yeah. So you dig deep and all of a sudden, like have an epiphany of how to do a deal? That's

Mary Danielson22:48Well, sometimes too, she'd sneak away. Her husband's we are on vacation and she's I'm in the bathroom. What do you think about this property? And I was like, it's good. Tell me you're tired. Just we're sneaking. I'm like, oh, Nick wants to go to dinner tonight. I gotta go to the bathroom so we can talk about it so we don't get yelled at. Yeah, like man does the other man, right? It's our,

Brandon Parker23:12yeah, it is. That's great. Well, that's good that you're passionate about it. Mean, I think that Land is so fun. I mean, that's why I do the podcast is because Land's fun. Everyone's an entrepreneur and doing something interesting. They love in what they do and making money. And so, yeah, that's that's cool that you're both making it work like that. Yeah. A lot of your businesses around authentic branding and relationship building, did you do that intentionally, or is that just naturally how you operate? Or when you first thought of this, did you launch with that in mind, or did it happen?

Ann Danielson23:47I think it's a little bit of both. I think from the beginning, I'm always thinking about outliers and how are we outliers and what is unique about us and what's true to us and always coming back to that. I think that's my my design thinking brain. And we did have a unique childhood, I think, even though we were in Madison, we did spend a lot of time up north with my dad and my dad was quite a character and very, he would just go elk hunting and live in a teepee for three weeks and long in a lot of these rough experiences.

Ann Danielson24:22So I grew up in a gun club and I was the only girl. And so we, I mean, we know how to talk to hunters and up north people and all of that. So I think it was just thinking about, okay, who's our market and who are we? And then what is the connection between the two?

Brandon Parker24:44And when you say up north, are you talking Northern Wisconsin or are talking Canada?

Mary Danielson24:48Northern Wisconsin. Okay.

Brandon Parker24:50So Madison, Wisconsin is not north for anyone listening. Madison, Wisconsin is actually north.

Mary Danielson24:55And anything north is up north. Okay. That's awesome. Pretty much anything North of Wisconsin, Dallas is up north. Okay.

Brandon Parker25:02Nice. Love it. Love it. And got a big like saying in Wisconsin. Oh, the Northerners. Yeah. They're wild up there. Yeah.

Mary Danielson25:11Here in Colorado, when people say they're going to the mountains and I always say up north, really they're west. They're like, oh, they're actually West Mary. I'm like, well, it's just cabins and woods. So it's up north. So the mountain people are. Right.

Brandon Parker25:24My grandpa's from Saskatchewan. So I know about those Northern people are, there's some wild people out in the woods there for sure. So that's cool. So do either of you, do you still go out? Do you still go up north? I mean, do you still go into the woods and do camping and stuff like that? We do as much as we can. Like in the summer,

Ann Danielson25:44I always spend time up at a cabin and Mary does the same. Our family now, we had quite a lot of land up north that we sold after my dad passed. So we don't, and we didn't really like that land anyway, it was too rough for us, but we do go to nice up north places with lots of acreage for hiking in lakes. And I think both of us are our happiest when we're out in nature and

Mary Danielson26:10hanging out. Yeah, I would much rather be up north than, well, I've never been to Hawaii, but I call up north my Hawaii. Like we just, I just wanna be on a lake and paddle boarding or watching my kids swim, water skiing. So yeah, we just like outside.

Ann Danielson26:29Wonderful. Same for me. Mean, I live in, we go to the best beaches in the world on the weekend, but even still, I would prefer a freshwater lake and just like we're lake girls.

Brandon Parker26:40Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Well, my my up north is North California. Actually, it gets... California, when you picture it, you don't picture the northern part where it gets real deep in the woods and rivers and stuff. But that's we go bow hunting up there and camp by the river and that's my up north. It's actually up north too so yeah so everyone's got an up north that that's cool. How did it sounds like you had a really unique childhood. And did selling your family property, was that like a catalyst to get you into land?

Brandon Parker27:15Or was there any crossover there? Or like, how did you first think we should start buying and selling land? I wouldn't say that it was a catalyst,

Ann Danielson27:23but we have since drawn on the experience. And part of our childhood with our dad was he was teaching us about land and what matters and what makes it valuable. So I think that was in our core always, just understanding that land values are quite subjective, but there are qualities that you can learn about that you can understand your land better. But I wouldn't say that was the reason. The reason was because I was on a really strict lockdown in The Philippines and I was only allowed on the block in front of my house.

Ann Danielson27:59And so I'm kind of a hyper person and I exercise a lot and I was going crazy. And so I would just absorb every podcast I could. And I was like so many people, the bigger pockets and all those things, especially since we already owned real estate. So I really thought I was going to go multifamily. And then I think there was a guest that was a land investor and then the normal rabbit hole. I then started to research and then follow some other YouTubers and podcasters and land guru type people.

Ann Danielson28:32And then I dug into it enough that it was easy quickly to see that, especially working remote, that it would be a good fit and easier than we do rent out a home as well. And I don't love it. And so Mary had just moved to Colorado and didn't have a job yet and really juggling a lot with her kids and her family and her life. And then I had more time because I was locked down. And so then I just said, do you want to try this land investing thing?

Ann Danielson29:05And she literally took three seconds and was like, okay,

Mary Danielson29:12sure. Sounds good. I was very lost. And I was like, sure. I mean, what do I have to lose? So I can't believe where we are today. So I'm very thankful.

Brandon Parker29:21Yeah, that's amazing. That's so cool. How long did it take to do your first deal? Do you remember was your foot in the door? Was it like the land geek or?

Ann Danielson29:36Training or our first Our was program, I land academy. Yeah. Okay. And I think we started it in March or April. And our first deal came when I was at, I was visiting Marion Denver and that was in June. Yeah, in June. And it was our worst deal. We overpaid and we didn't get boots on the ground and it still went fine.

Ann Danielson30:07We made money, not much. We made 4,000 or 3,000 or something on it, which was terrible because I think we paid 24 or something silly, but we did learn a ton. That's also the only deal we ever did in Kentucky. I don't even know how we got it. Anyway, yeah, I do remember it and we learned so much from then on. We've always done realtors and brokers for the disposition, that was the one deal where we didn't have them walk it in advance and of going to title.

Ann Danielson30:40And so we've never done that since. We always have somebody walk the property. And

Brandon Parker30:48so you had a bit of a hiccup there. Have you talked about some other hiccups you've had, maybe some more recent ones with some bigger deals or things that you have happening more in your modern day business here?

Ann Danielson30:59Well, we've had clear sailing for many months and then the last twenty four hours.

Brandon Parker31:05Good timing.

Ann Danielson31:08Mary's still smiling, but go ahead, Mary.

Mary Danielson31:12I mean, which one, I don't know which one you want me to talk about. Well, had a lady. So we had two closings today to purchase a property and one of the ladies called me yesterday and I am seriously having phone trouble, but I wasn't able to answer her call, thank God, because she wanted to sit down at the table and renegotiate the price. I had already wired the funds and literally the closing is tomorrow at noon and we have a mobile notary coming to you. So I just lied a little bit and said, can sure try to call me, but my phone's not working.

Mary Danielson31:46And I just stated around the issue a little bit and she was like, oh, no problem. And she like never asked again to renegotiate. I'm like, are you serious? This is literally the strangest thing I've ever heard. She had heard from her cousin that the land was worth more than that, which it is. But I also was not feeling guilty about it because our initial conversation was, did you have a price in mind? She said 80,000. I said, okay. So, nope, we're not gonna renegotiate that one. Yeah. Yeah. And then we had another one that we were supposed to close on May 25 that we thought we sold and they backed out due to, oh shoot, what's that called in?

Mary Danielson32:27Feasibility. The building The feasibility study. So the cost of the driveway, the septic, and the electricity was gonna cost them a 150,000. So our realtor is really wonderful and tried to be like, I'm sorry, that's not gonna fly, but I guess it did. So he's coming up with a new marketing plan for it. He'll sell it, but it's still... That's the first time that we've actually had a deal fall apart. Mhmm. Right? Other than That's true.

Mary Danielson32:58When trying to purchase, we had one fall apart too recently, but it was early.

Brandon Parker33:03Did they have a deposit on that?

Mary Danielson33:05They did, but we don't get it because of the feasibility box being marked.

Brandon Parker33:11Oh, there is a... There's a contingency.

Mary Danielson33:14Yep. Yeah. Because we thought the same thing. Why don't we get our money?

Ann Danielson33:20Our earnest money. Yeah. But no. No.

Mary Danielson33:24So

Brandon Parker33:25that's like,

Ann Danielson33:27I had a plan for it. I know.

Mary Danielson33:30We can't spend that money now. We know to put the feasibility study in our offers.

Brandon Parker33:35Yeah. Seriously. What's the most interesting deal that you feel like you've done over time?

Ann Danielson33:43I think the most interesting

Mary Danielson33:45one Double What?

Ann Danielson33:48Double close. Was gonna say the squatter that bought it. Oh,

Mary Danielson33:53okay. Go ahead.

Ann Danielson33:55There was a, the broker that was walking the property found a squatter and it was a lady and she had a little tiny house hidden in the woods. And he just happened upon her and said, Oh my, this is, this land has been sold. And then she said, and then he said, it's going to go to market. And she said, Okay, I'll buy it. And then she paid full ask in cash. So she was hoping to make it to whatever the year limit, I can't remember it was seven or nine years to get squatters rights.

Ann Danielson34:32And she had only been there six. And so she's, oh, only been here six. That's okay. I'll pay. And then she just bought it. So I thought that was Interesting. Yeah, you're right. That one is way more interesting.

Brandon Parker34:43Five minutes. That's actually crazy to picture her out there waiting it out that long. And then maybe she was just planning. Like, I have a backup plan. If I get someone finds me, I'll just have this money ready and she's saving up. That's actually a pretty cool story. And actually she was running a whole business off of the data on her phone. Really? Wow. What was she... Do you know what kind of business she was running?

Ann Danielson35:05I don't. She did say something with Etsy.

Mary Danielson35:08Okay. She

Brandon Parker35:10was out there, like, whittling

Mary Danielson35:12I was gonna say I was just gonna say whittlesticks.

Brandon Parker35:15Yeah. She's whittling stuff off the property that she was squatting on. Right? Selling the resources and buying. Alright. That's awesome.

Mary Danielson35:23That's funny. Did you have another one you wanna mention, Mary? It sounded like you might have had one on the top of your head. No. Was just gonna say, like, for us at the time of it, it was interesting. Like, we were like, seriously? You can do this? Like, with the double close where we literally have had decent luck, not so much recently with like neighbors and just being able to be like, okay, and then they pay for everything. Just interesting to me, I guess.

Brandon Parker35:51I, I have, I've mentioned that to friends and they go, wait, that doesn't even sound like that's a crazy deal. I can't believe people do that. Yeah. And people do that all the time. How often do you double close or you just not feel like dealing with it at this point? Every property

Mary Danielson36:04is so different. Like, we really approach each property so differently, and we look at the neighbors, probably our second look at the property initially. Obviously, we just look at the regular Top O and flood plains. And then the next time we're like, all right, let's look at these neighbors, see if they might have interests. What do they own? Who... And we've learned like, oh, who did they buy it from? Oh, the neighbor. They might not be interested, but sometimes they are interested to buy it back. Actually, I need to make that neighbor call because time has passed or they have more money or new plans.

Mary Danielson36:40And so, yeah, we reach out to neighbors for sure. And we've done it, I don't know, two or three times maybe. And it's really been like very easy. We have had a couple that are like, that called around and tried to stop the process of it, which is fine. But we learned from that as well. Less is more.

Ann Danielson37:00One thing we haven't done, but I think we should consider as well is we don't buy landlocked properties, but we haven't done a good job of paying attention to if there are landlocked properties behind ours. And I think that is something that we should take more time to look and see. If we're buying 10 acres and then there are three properties behind us that are currently landlocked, we might be able to scoop them up for a great deal. And for some reason, our brain can go the other way.

Ann Danielson37:30Oh, it's landlocked, call the person with access. But when we are the person with access, I don't don't know, well, I guess we're a bit dim. We haven't really looked at that.

Brandon Parker37:40Yeah. That's a, that is an interesting angle. We were actually just looking at two forty acres parcels next to each other where the back piece is landlocked and we just wrote the back piece off. But but if we bought the fur front piece first, then we'd have, I mean, probably even a much better deal on that other piece. So that's interesting when you look at it for sure. What what are your long term goals for the business, and how are you thinking of maybe expanding or networking, community engagement? I mean, I see you dominating the land conquest group with getting all the points and being the gold medal at the top commenter.

Brandon Parker38:17And so, yeah, what's the plan?

Ann Danielson38:20Well, congratulations on your silver, Brandon. Oh, yes,

Brandon Parker38:24thank you. Feels good. Well, on the podium, I'd actually need to be down in the third place because there's two of you.

Ann Danielson38:31Yeah, I think actually we have only started joining groups and commenting and engaging with the community within the last, oh, maybe eight or ten months. And before that, really hadn't. And then I realized, oh, everybody's going to conferences and they're getting to know each other and they are making, building a network and we've always just been a little island. And so I thought I do have to put myself out there and I'm not a natural social media person and Mary isn't either.

Ann Danielson39:07And so that was actually one of my goals this year is to join more forums and to be visible and ask questions and answer questions if I can help. And in the Pete Reschool community, it's a really safe and happy little land of newbies. And so it is a place where I do feel comfortable answering people's questions if it's something that I've been through. Some of them are a bit like a bunch of young guys in a little bit locker room.

Ann Danielson39:41So we don't you know were in. It's not as much of a fit, but I think that that feels like Disney, that's like Disneyland, Disneyland. And so, yeah, that the school community is a place that we've done that also with the Seth Williams. I really liked the Ari Tipster crew. I love the Casual Fridays guys. Yeah, we are a little bit more out there and it has made a difference now. Have had we just actually funded a deal.

Ann Danielson40:11We subdivided and it was from a newbie and it was his first deal. And he heard about us from a Wisconsin buddy. And so he brought it and said, is this a subdivide? And we're like, it sure is. And then he said, will you run it for me? And we'd already done one in the county. So we knew who we were calling for everything. And so it went very smoothly. And I think it's, well, it's partially sold now and he's happy and we're happy. And he just asked us to fill him in at every step, what did you do?

Ann Danielson40:46How did you do it? He asked us questions and I'm a teacher, so I like teaching and Mary's just friendly and kind. And so, yeah, it's been actually really fun. Oh man, I mean, we get a great deal and he got a great deal of learning, so.

Mary Danielson41:01Yeah, Andy's looking for more for us. Fantastic. Sure. That

Brandon Parker41:06is great. I think that's the most... One of the most unique things about the land community is that there's so much land and so many deals that it doesn't... It's all... It always seems to be land. It's just a almost blue ocean. It's... You don't feel like you're competing against people. You can help them out, give them tips, learn from them, make deals together. Yeah. It's beautiful. So is that the main driver behind you starting to build your network? Are you looking to get into funding more deals and working with people or? Well, no, it's the opposite. Now we're out of money.

Mary Danielson41:36Now

Ann Danielson41:38we need to find some cheaper capital because as I mean, the land community, if you're a newer person that getting your deals funded by a guru or by a coach or someone that can be a mentor to you is great, right? Because you do so much learning, but you just also give up so much of the deal. And so we're, I do have a bee lock on our home, so we're gonna burn up that on our next big purchase. And after that we're tapped out until we sell some of our current properties.

Ann Danielson42:10And so I am on the hunt for finding some cheaper capital and we want to work with banks and we've developed some email relationships, but there's definitely people that have said, yes, when you can come in the door and when we can meet on our visit, we're going to Tennessee this summer, we'd be happy to work with you. But I think it's not that easy when you're a lady texting In The Philippines. They're just like, she seems shady, like she's a teacher when she's in The Philippines, but their land is in Tennessee and she's from Wisconsin.

Ann Danielson42:43I think I can see how I seem like I'm drama, but hopefully we can clear some of that up, some bank financing this summer.

Brandon Parker42:52Yeah. We'll send them this podcast so they can see you're both real sharp, then they'll be like, take a look. Take

Mary Danielson42:58I know. Thank you. Yeah.

Brandon Parker43:01I was... We were talking about Land Dev Matt, but Matt talked about financing. So I'm sure you're connected to him, but he is familiar with getting a little bit better rates from banks and make it swinging those types of funding. So it's cool that everyone's connected. You talked about Land Conquest, RE Tipster, Casual Friday. Do RE Tipster and Casual Friday also have a school group? Or what's the good places to meet up with those communities?

Ann Danielson43:26Yeah. Tipster has a startup for people who are new for sure. And actually I just sent a couple of friends there because I think Seth Williams is just a class act and so solid and his knowledge is so deep. And so I think that's a great spot. Casual Fridays guys do a really cool subdivide course or master course or whatever you want to say. We haven't been able to do it because, well, because we haven't. But I know people that have gone through it and we talk and they oftentimes will bring knowledge from that.

Ann Danielson44:02And Justin is also just super great about that. Reaching out, I've been able to ask him questions, even though I'm not in the course and he's been really responsive and helpful. So yeah, I think all of those guys are great.

Brandon Parker44:16Nice. What is a new belief or habit that has improved your life in the last year?

Ann Danielson44:24Don't believe our habit. I believe our habit.

Brandon Parker44:31Or maybe just an unusual habit or something absurd that you love.

Ann Danielson44:37Can... Either of those questions could be for either of you. Okay. Well, the thing that's absurd that we love is land. No one would look at either of us and think those ladies are into land, and no one really knows that we are. Like the secret

Mary Danielson44:53side of society. I mean, truly we sneak off to the bathroom so that we can get away from, not that we wanna get away from our family, but we're just in trouble. Yeah.

Ann Danielson45:06I think we both have learned though that we can think bigger and like the Alex Hermosy vibes in the brain that just say, work harder, you've got this. It's not brains, it's hard work and deliberation and a lot of problems. I think we're really deliberate in terms of prioritizing. And I think that's helped us in the last year too, just not being reactive and not just running and doing emails and calls as they come in, but instead really time blocking and thinking about what tasks need to take priority.

Ann Danielson45:41And we both have our key tasks that we value more than others. And so just making sure that we're always mindful and really deliberate about what am I doing today with the two hours I have? And then when I have ten minutes later, what am I sneaking in there?

Mary Danielson45:58Yep. I would say for myself, especially like I'm a procrastinator because I think I'm just used to doing everything always in a hurry because I, for most of my life, I was always in a hurry. And so now it's, I used to put off the things until the last minute because I've, then I could just do them really quick and I'd get them done. Now I really try to wake up every morning and do the five things I don't wanna do or just, oh, I gotta make that call or ordering deeds sometimes is, it's very easy, but sometimes it's not depending on the lady.

Mary Danielson46:32So I just make myself do the things that I don't wanna do and then get to the part that I do wanna do. And of course, for me lately, sometimes some days go better than others just because if the phone's ringing or if I'm doing two closes, then that's the priority for the day. But for the most part, do the things you don't wanna do, and then you get to do the things you do wanna do.

Brandon Parker46:56So I like that. I think for I'm kind of a natural procrastinator, but I think for natural procrastinators, it forces a flow state. It's okay. Now I have an hour and I have to get this done and then I can just get hyper focused and that's... So, yeah, being able to turn that hyper focus on as I want as opposed to when I put myself under the gun is is definitely something I work on as well. So Right. I feel you on that. As we wind down here, we generally end up... End with a final quest final two questions.

Brandon Parker47:27Last one is just where people can find you online. But the last two questions are, if you had... Could put one message out to all of Twitter, what... And everyone would see it. What would you say? And each of you could answer that.

Mary Danielson47:47This is...

Ann Danielson47:49The Twitter's short. I think live free in the way that being free means something different to everybody, but I think that your definition of free, live in the way that makes you definition of free. I like that. Yeah. Yeah.

Mary Danielson48:09That's wonderful. So for me, it probably would be... I mean, it sounds a little cheesy, but just believe because I do feel like when we first started, I was like, what are we doing? And believe and just do it. Do the things. So I don't know what the message would be, but that's the way that I feel about all of this. I can't believe it sometimes that we're really pushing forward and solving the problems and making it work.

Ann Danielson48:35She gets really mad when I say,

Mary Danielson48:37what are we doing in our fake business today? Yes, I do. So good. I don't have a W-two anymore, so this is our business and we got to make it work. Oh

Brandon Parker48:47my gosh, that's so good. I just read a book called The Surrender Experiment, but, it's just all about... It it basically just going with the flow and just sounds like a little bit of what you're both doing. You found this business, and it's evolving and taking off, you're going with it and crushing it. So that's awesome. So live free and believe. Let's just... Let's put that on Twitter for Live free and believe. Do it. I don't know. And you can do it.

Ann Danielson49:12The funny thing is, like, the connotation of both of those is not what we mean. Right? Like, we're not saying put a gun in your truck and ran crazy. Those really aren't our messages. So I don't know And

Brandon Parker49:23they go up north, live free and go head up north. Awesome. Where's where's the best place for people to connect with you, get in the community with you or see you online?

Ann Danielson49:35Actually, I'm glad you asked that question because it's very confusing. Originally, we just started Mary Ann Danielson because she's Mary and I'm Anne and Mary Ann's a name. And then we just occupy the same account. And so oftentimes people rightfully so think that Mary Ann Danielson is one person. And so Mary Ann Danielson is where you'll find us on Facebook and pretty much anything that we join. We also do just use our one email account. So it helps a ton because we can just, oh, I left it for you in the drafts and back and forth.

Ann Danielson50:10So yeah, we're Maryann Danielson on Facebook and yeah, that's probably the best place to just send us a message or some money.

Brandon Parker50:19I'm gonna send you some money on Facebook. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Awesome. Well, wonderful to have both of you on the show. Do you have any parting thoughts?

Ann Danielson50:30No. Thank you, Brandon. You're doing a great thing with your podcast and I hope that it is giving you a lot of fun and enjoyment and connections. It's true because land is lonely and I hope it's expediting your learning and your journey.

Brandon Parker50:45Absolutely. It's, it's the turbocharge. I get to talk to all kinds of interesting people. I really enjoy it. So thanks for coming on the show today and everyone, for listening. Absolutely.

Mary Danielson50:55Thank you.