Episode #47 - From Dirt to Dollars: The Land Banking Journey! 💵💰🌳🏦

Episode #47 - Interview with Brad Warren! In this episode, Shanna  interviews Brad Warren, a land banking specialist, who shares his journey into land banking and how it can help investors build generational wealth.  Our discussion culminates in a life-changing career shift and reflections on success and giving back to the community.  If you're looking for a new way to do business, build your retirement fund, or add another tool to your investing belt, this is the episode for you.  🌳🏦💰

Ways to get ahold of Brad:
🔗📥Linked In:  @bradleykwarren
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Sound Bites
"I want some dirt."
"This is a patient investors game."
"We have a research and acquisition department."
"She turned down $750,000!" 🫢🫨🤯
"Life goes on."
"I tell people, buy one piece of land to start."
"It's mostly retirement funds and cash."
"I sell dirt. That's my main occupation."
"Mortgage consultants are really struggling."
"I love traveling."
"Do your due diligence on any investment."

Transcript

0:23

Hi guys, welcome back to Sub2Shawna. is the way episode 47. Today, I have Brad Warren on the show. Brad is a land banking specialist helping investors build generational wealth. has a lot of experience in it and I'm guessing a lot of land too, right? Oh yeah. I own a lot of this. A lot of dirt. Thank you. My wife and I own a lot of Wow. Okay. So, um, tell us what led you on the path to land banking. Well, ever since I met my wife dating back to March of 1989, we were going to get married in a couple of months. I do a quarterly net worth statement, which I highly recommend to all of your listeners just to keep track of your wealth and, is it getting bigger or smaller or staying the same? And on December 31st, 2011, I was 60 years old at the time, about to turn 61 in January. And I looked at the numbers and I realized I couldn't retire. My wife could retire with her 401k that she had at Oracle together with our combined resources. We could basically make it. But if I was a single guy on my own with just my own money, I was not going to be able to retire. And that was kind of sobering. So in January of 2012, I called my land banker, name is Marcella Silva, invited her to our house. She came with her laptop, just like a real tour, we'd do a listing presentation, you know, with the husband and wife at the table. And she does her hour and a half presentation. We're asking questions and all this. And at the end, my wife stands up and says, no, thank you. Don't want to invest in dirt. It's too long range. I'm very happy with my 401k and my mutual funds. And she walks out of the room. Okay. I turned to Marcella and I said, I want some dirt. I did this, I think is the only way I'm going to build enough generational wealth, not only for me and for my wife, but also to pass on to our daughter. So two months later, I got my first property. A year later, I bought a second, a year later, I bought a third. And then I was on my way to see Marcella present at a hotel. You know how you rent a hotel room? invite a bunch of investors and they bring their friends, their potential investors. Yeah, she was doing a seminar very similar to what she had presented to me at the kitchen table or to us at the kitchen table. And my wife says, want to go. I said, well, I didn't think you were interested in investing in land. She said, well, I've been watching you for three years now, maybe four at that point. And you've gone down, you've looked at the land, you have these little baggies labeled with the address of the land and, know, in a drawer and soil samples. Yeah, just picked up some soil on the land that I own and put it in a bag and labeled it and brought it home. And you've met the CEO and all of the staff and you go to the annual meetings and maybe I missed something, but I'm not going to buy any. the whole way in the car, Shauna, she's going, but I'm not going to buy. I said fine, don't buy. I'm just through that you want to go. And we brought our gym beds with us because we were going to go directly to the gym when it was over. Long story short, get to the hotel, watch the two hour presentation. Marcella says, we're going to take a break. When you come back, we have four properties for sale. I turned to my wife, Marie. I said, okay, let's go. She said, no, no, I want to see the properties. said, but you said you didn't want to buy. I just want to see what they are. She bought two of the four. She had a checkbook with her, which I did not know. She brought it along just in case. And the whole way home in the car, going, I thought you weren't going to buy. thought you weren't going to buy. Now you bought it. He said, shut up. Shut up. get it. I understand now. So that was number four and five today. own 11 properties, almost 40 acres. And we're set. that sounds like something that our, that our, sub two community member tells us a lot. says a confused rhyme will always say no. Yes. In fact, we, meaning the company I work for so firmly believes in education first, you're not even allowed to invest with us until you see Marcella's full one hour presentation. If one of the people watching your show gets a hold of me, they email me and they said, Brad, I get it. I understand what land banking is. I love the concept. I've got $25,000. I'll drive over to your house right now. tell them, save yourself a trip. Let me send you a link, watch the program that Marcella talks about, about your presentation. And then if you're still interested, then get a hold of me and we'll talk further. We basically put people through a bunch of very high bars because we don't want them getting upset. it's been two years. nothing's happening with my land. We told you seven to 10 years. This is a patient investors game. This is not a flip, not a flip, not 90 days in and out. not cash flow. I one lady call me and says, how much cash flow is there on the vacant land? I was ready to shoot the person that referred her because they didn't follow my instructions when they make referrals. They were supposed to educate the person first and they didn't because they didn't really know what I did. By the way, my referral partners also have to watch the one hour before I will even accept the referral. That's how high the bar is. So that was a long answer to a short question, but that's kind how I got involved in it. Six years ago, I actually started working for the company. I got my real estate license and now I'm a real estate agent selling dirt. Yes. So is there a difference between land banking and land flipping? Yes. I've met a couple of land flippers. We've actually talked about referring to each other because their model is very different. Land flipping, as I understand it, is you either subject to or you actually get control of the land and then put it on the market and sell it for more than what you paid for it. Okay. So either wholesaling or novation type thing. Exactly. Our model buy, hold, do nothing. No sign, no realtor. You don't go looking for a buyer. You wait for, let's say you bought what we call green real estate or green energy real estate. You know, it's going to go to a solar farm. It's going to go to an energy company that wants to build a thousand acre solar farm and you earn one little itty bitty two acre plot in the middle of the boundaries. They have to get your land. They can't leave it empty. That land generates so much electricity that it is foolish for them to leave it sitting there fallow. Plus they'd have to leave an easement to get to it. So no solar panels on the two acres plus the whole easement. Not smart. So you can get a very attractive exit price because you basically have the resource that the energy company needs. You got the dirt. Right. Okay. Well, guess we know how you would recommend newbies to get started in this niche. Reach out to Sha-Na-Na. You contact you and you'll forward their information to me or just email me brad at bradwarren.com. We'll put it up somewhere later on, but just email me. I'm going to ask, how did you hear about me? Since all of my business is by referral, I need to know how they got to me. So at least there's like, okay, now I understand. And then from there, but by the way, I also pay referral fees. That's part of why I need to keep track. Um, just get a hold of me. And the first thing we're going to do is we're going to have a zoom. We're going to chat. chat a little bit so I can find out who you are and why do you want to even invest in land and do you have the money to do it? And if you pass muster, then the next thing is you'll watch Marcelo's presentation. And then after that, you'll probably still have some more questions to ask. And we just keep going until you are 100 % either no thank you or 100 % I get it, I'm ready to invest. I know a whole bunch of investors. Okay. How do you vet land? Like how do you decide what land is good to buy and what land is not and how do you find it? Excellent question or questions. So first of all, it's a little hard to see the map behind me, but that's a map of California. That white circle kind of down at the bottom for those that are watching this, that are seeing it. We only invest within a 60 mile radius of downtown LA. There's 10 reasons why we don't have time on this show. That's why you watch Marcel's presentation because she explains more about this. But basically you've got to be near a port. You've got to be near rail and air and ground transportation. So trucks can get in and out with goods. need to have rising population. You need to have business friendly city government. You don't want to invest in an area where they're going to stop you from developing the land because they don't want the not in my backyard kind of mentality. So there's 10 reasons why we only invest within that 60 mile radius. So that's a short answer, much longer answer, watch the presentation and then talk to me more. How, go ahead. How we find it. Well, you actually asked me two questions. Where is there I am, know, and then how do we, but we have a research and acquisition department. I wouldn't know the first thing about finding dirt. I wouldn't know what to ask. I wouldn't know where to look. We have an entire department, it's got maybe five or six employees, full-time employees, and all they do is use what we call a 16-point comprehensive analysis checklist. Every piece of land that they look at within that 60-mile radius gets run through these 16 questions. And if we don't get a yes to every one of the 16, we don't touch it. We actually buy one out of every 30 that we look at. So that's about 3%. Just over 3%. So you have a program that folks can join to kind of learn the whole thing or they partner with you or? No, no, no, no, no. We don't teach this system to anybody. The company is family owned, started by the dad, now run by the son, 45 year old company. very proprietary information, proprietary maps that we have that no one else on the planet owns that we use to look at the land to see are there easements that people don't know about? Is there a buried gas tank from a gas station that was there 50 years ago that nobody knows about, but we know about it because we have maps that date back that far? So we do the research, we do the risk mitigation. We actually buy the land first ourselves from the seller. We then market up. We're going to be, let's be transparent here. We buy it really cheap. We market up still below market value, still within reason for our investors, but with a gap, which is the cashflow to run the company and pay all those employees. That's where our cash flow comes from. We buy it, we sell it. And then the investor has the seven to 10 year patience period to wait till it skyrockets way up here. Gotcha. So the investors have, yeah, get to skip all the hard stuff and the knowledge and everything in the beginning and they can just come pick something out, hold onto it and play the long game with the appreciation. Yes, this is definitely an equity play. Most of my clients will use, because I know you talk a lot about creative financing. Most of my clients will use self-directed iris or even better, a self-directed Roth IRA. Hopefully your listeners have heard about the difference between regular IRAs and Roth IRAs. Well, my wife and I, I told you we have 11 properties, nine are in our self-directed Roth, two are in a self-directed regular traditional SEP IRA. Couldn't get them into the Roth in time. So nine of those properties, when they sell all that profit, that's ours. Uncle Sam gets nothing. Right. And then you sit and you wait and the developer knocks on your door and says, hi, Mr. Warren. We see you on a property at this such and such address. We know you paid X. We'd like to offer you this. And we always know they're fishing. They're low balling. So I would, what I would do in that situation is I would say, thank you. Send me the offer in writing via email and I'll get back to you. And I hang up. I call the seat. Well, I call Marcella. She calls the CEO of the company. He offers free negotiation strategy coaching. on any investor that needs help. So I say, Marcella, here's the email I got. Here's my property. Here's the plat map. Here's where it's located. Here's what I paid for it. Here's what they're offering me. Please have the CEO give you some advice. CEO gives her a bunch of questions. She gets back to me. She says, Brad, here's what I want you to ask that energy company. Why do you want to land? What are you building? you're building a solar farm. What are the boundaries? How many megawatts? When are you going online? When are you breaking ground? How much will each acre produce in electricity once it's up and running? How many years till it finally goes online? I wouldn't know to ask all those questions. I'm not just a guy that owns dirt. So the CEO is giving me, By the way, the CEO will also let me know if any other investors from our company own land in the same boundary and have they been offered money. We have found many times there could be two or three other investors who have already been offered double or triple what that company first offered me. So when I go back to them, I say, well, by the way, have you made offers on land to anybody else within the boundaries of this project? Uh, well, Mr. One, we're not at liberty to divulge that to you. Oh, what about the property at, I'll give them the address and I'll tell them, didn't you just offer that? Well, how do you know that I'm not at liberty to divulge that? Because I do my homework because I do my due diligence. I happen to know. I just happened to know. I'm not going to tell them, you know, that I got it from the company. It happens to be a friend of mine and we talk and I know you offered them 90,000. You only offered me 30. What's up with that? And then I shut up because when you're silent, when you negotiate, you let the other side give you a lot more information. then go back to now you made me mad. So mine's going to go for 110. Yeah. I won't say that, but they now know that's pretty much what's going to happen. So now I go back to Marcella. She goes back to the CEO. get, I get, say, here are all the answers to those questions you gave me. Plus a couple of extra questions I asked. What do I do next? Wait, wait. Yeah. don't respond to their offer. We got stories of people that waited and the price went up $100,000, $300,000, half a million dollars. Oh, do we have time for one quick story? absolutely. this is one of Marcella's clients, buys a 10 acre parcel, green energy, for $150,000. Six months after buying it, she gets her first offer of $300,000. She calls Marcella, she talks to the CEO. give her some, we can't call it advice because that's a legal term and we get in trouble. can't call us. long does she hold onto the property for it to double in value? Six months. She had it six months and they offered her 300,000. Wow. So we gave her some coaching. I'll call it coaching, not advice. And we told her what we thought the land was worth. And so she said, okay, thank you. We didn't hear from her again. But then we heard about, I don't know, a month later, two months later, 500,000. And we thought, okay, that's three X. We told you three to seven X return. It's been less than a year. You're going to make 500 on 150. She turned it down. About six months goes by. We got kind of nervous because we can't give her any more help. She turned down our help already. Six months goes by. They come back to her. 750,000 turned it down. We're freaking out just like that. We're going to just like, like hands over the, oh my God. She turned down 750. That was what six acts. think, is that right? Or five X. That's fine. She found out what they wanted it for a bet. Well, she knew what they wanted it for. She just didn't have the need to sell it. She was patient, which is what we make sure our investors are. The next offer, 1.3 million. my gosh. She didn't have time to turn that one down because like a week later they came back and said final offer 1.5. And thank God at that point she said yes. So by the time she closed, the way, when the increments get smaller, when the amount that they're offering it. So from 1.3 to 1.5, that was only 200,000. The previous one was much bigger. You know, they're getting close. So at that point she said, so I think from start from date of escrow closing and she owning it to selling it for 1.5 million, was about two years. And again, my numbers may be off by a month or two or whatever, it's now that's an extreme example. 10 X in two years. I don't want your listeners thinking, God, I got to do this right away because I need that kind of money. We're very conservative. tell people seven to 10 years and we tell them three to seven X is the expected return. that story, it almost felt like I was on a game show. know what I mean? you want to risk it or do you want to go behind door number two? Yeah, I don't have the nice Jewish word because I don't want to use other words, you know, in Spanish, but I don't have the the wherewithal to to wait and turn down that size of an offer. I probably would have gone with the 750. I would have been thrilled 150 to 750. I'm very impatient as well. I wouldn't need to buy it to negotiate on my behalf. Pat on the back, she did an amazing job of negotiating. Just amazing. Yes. Yes. Yes. can't wait to get to another story. I guess that takes care of my next question. It doesn't always have to be a long game. You just need to be prepared to do a long game type strategy. Yes. But sometimes you can make it shorter term. Yeah. We have a lot of examples of people getting out sooner. One of my own clients. Her first parcel I ever sold was $750,000. It was huge. That was like a whale, especially as as a newbie, uh, you know, first year in the business, you never sell that, that big a property. And she had it five years and exited at $2 So she didn't make quite three times. She also didn't listen to us. She didn't call to get our coaching. We would have gotten her at least three, two and a half to three. But she was impatient. She thought, oh, I better take this now because no one's offered me anything. It's been five years. Yeah. You're still not at seven to 10, which is what we told you. So she got out at two million. Oh gee, two million on a $750,000. So she made 1.25 million in five years. Okay. So yeah, we, and then there were people that have waited. That one I'd have to go look. It was either 10 or 20, but it was a, and it was, more, you know, there's five kinds of zoning of land. don't know if you're listeners. Okay. So, you know, there's all different kinds, residential, non-right, this, this was more like, industrial might be more industrial. So of course she paid a lot more per acre to buy it, but she also sold it for a lot more. So depending, you know, and again, we can work with people from 25,000 to 2 million. That's the range that we can help people. So I should know this. mean, I'm originally from Baltimore, Maryland. So I grew up right next to a port. As a matter of fact, the morning that I started packing my moving truck to move down south was the day I woke up getting ready to pack the truck. That was the day that everybody started blasting me via text and calling in this and that saying the key bridge is down because I live like five, 10 minute drive from there. And I was like, no way. I remember being a little kid when that thing was opened. Yeah. So, and you know, of course the port is right by there, obviously. So for a while, but that's one of the things that you have, like the land being like in a certain, amount of radius of major ports. Right. Yes. Well, LA and Long Beach Harbor, the busiest in the United States. Most of the goods coming from the Far East, all could just call China, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, all of those manufactured goods, the vast majority of them come into the United States through Long Beach and L.A. Harbor. Well, they land. What happens to them? Let's walk this through real quickly. All those containers get put onto what trucks? Where do the trucks drive to the warehouses? You have to have a warehouse within 200 miles of a major metropolitan area so it can be there overnight because everybody in America wants it either today. If I ordered it at 8 a.m., I want it by 4 p.m. or worst case scenario overnight. all of these children. So near Amazon warehouses, right? Yeah, lot of warehouses in the Antelope Valley where we invest and they're building, there's something like 40 million square feet of land that's being developed in the Antelope Valley. And most of it is warehouses. So a lot of our clients are buying land that's zoned for warehousing now because they know they're building these Skechers and Michaels and Zappos and you know, all these different companies that need to ship things overnight are building these warehouses 60 miles from downtown LA. One hour, hour and a half drive. non-traffic, four hours in traffic. But when you schedule yourself to drive in non-commute times, you can make it from the Antelope Valley to downtown LA in 60 to 70 minutes. I don't think there's ever been a better time than now to hop on something like this to start buying land. If the economy starts to improve at all, there's going to be a lot more of these goods and things needed. Even if the economy doesn't improve, even if it just stays like it is, or even if it drops that, do you think people are going to stop buying from Amazon? No, I don't care what the economy, do they still need toilet paper? Do they still need toothbrushes? Do they still need paint? Do they still need, you know, repairs to their home? Yes. That stuff doesn't change no matter who's in office, no matter what they say. Right. Life goes on. There's going to be people that still need all of these things. They're going to need it from warehouses and what warehouses get built on land. Our investors do well in boom and bust times. Doesn't matter what the economies do with some these sales. many investors do you usually serve? Like a lot or? I'll serve as many as I can. The company, the last time I looked at a number, I believe We've had in the course of the 45 years, over 20,000 investors. Oh, wow. Marcella has been doing this, my land banker, who I bought the land from. I mean, I bought it from the company, but through her. She's got, I think, over 500 different clients and has sold several thousand properties or 800 or a thousand properties. I've only been doing it a few years. said I started six years ago and I only do it part-time. I'm not full-time. I've got, I don't know, 25, 30, 40 different clients and one year I sold a couple million dollars worth of land. It was incredible. The need for land, what did I say? Invest in land because they're not making any more of it. So how about like housing? mean, there's a huge need for affordable housing right now. How, like there's different criteria. When you watch the video, one of the things you'll see is population growth. Well, when an area creates a lot of jobs, it needs a lot of people. Where are they going to live in the new houses that are being built? Quick example, Antelope Valley. Like I said, from non-commute hours, You can make it from the Antelope Valley to downtown LA in an hour to an hour and a quarter. So let's say you're a remote worker and you live in LA and your property taxes are off the board. You, you lived in like a $2 million house. You sell that house. You move to the suburbs. You buy a brand new three bedroom, two bath house, 2200, 2300 square feet, gated community pool workout room. for $425,000, maybe 450. You'd have enough cash to buy it outright and not even have a mortgage. And you work from home. And when you have to go in for a lunch meeting, you leave your house at 11. You're in downtown LA by noon. You have lunch for let's say an hour and a half, 1.30, you beat the trap. You're home at 2.30. You hop in the pool. You go pick up your kids from school. You go home, you do a little work. A lot of people are leaving Los Angeles, the city part of Los Angeles and moving out to this outer region and living in the places where we're investing. And guess what? D.A. Chorton, American Homes, KB Homes, they're all there building, building, building nice homes for people to live in. Yeah. With a lot with a remote work on the rise over the last three or four years, like people can really live where they want to. Exactly. They they could buy a van and just travel around. I know a lot of them. You don't have to get get ready, drive to the place, drive home, blah, blah, blah. My nomadic friends, they, had an RV, they sell all their possessions. They have their laptop and on a hotspot and they just travel around. They, they park in a. National Park, they get online, they do a webinar, they do a podcast, they make money, and then they stay a couple of days and they go to another one. I mean, there's all kinds of possibilities out there. That's of long-term plans. Yeah. For long-term planning, for diversification, be careful. Look, I own a little bit of crypto. I have a fully paid single-family residence. We own government bonds, like a series of I bonds. We've got stocks. We've got mutual funds. What else? think that's pretty different. And land, you want to diversify. don't put all your eggs in one basket. How many times have you heard that? Right. So I tell people, I don't want your entire portfolio. Buy one piece of land to start. Dip your toe. Learn more about it and over time, you said we can do a subject to and seller finance, but are they usually just cash paid for in cash? You can't really do subject to seller. There's no seller finance. It's 10 31 exchange, IRA money. I've even had some people tell me they want to take an advance on their home, like a HELOC. And I say, What if you wind up owning it for 10 years and you're paying interest for 10 years? You're going to eat into a lot of your equity. So I don't recommend that. But if they think, you know, I'm going to buy land, you know, for solar and I'm going to two years, I can afford it. And I say, look, I'm telling you seven to 10, but you can do what you want. I don't give financial advice, but you can borrow from a life insurance policy and then pay yourself back when you sell it. It's what are that the life insurance with living benefits? It's the rage now everybody that's got life insurance infinite banking thing. Yeah, that kind of thing. Yeah, so but I would say for me my clients it's mostly Retirement funds and cash and then I've had a few 1031 exchanges one client actually sold two single-family residences because they were tied they had like 35 properties and they were just tired of being a landlord tenants toilets termites Taxes, trouble, they just wanted it. So they sold two and converted it into a big piece of property. And then they got an offer for a solar lease. They got an offer for, yeah, you don't always sell. Sometimes you lease the land to the energy company and you get cashflow for 35 years. Right. That's crazy. I've heard a lot of these city skyscrapers they'll have, or not even just skyscrapers, just city buildings will lease out the roof of their buildings. for the Verizon cell phones or internet or anything like that. Yeah. Well, now they're putting a lot of solar panels on all buildings. Anything that's directly going to get sunlight, it's free energy. mean, it's not free. You got to the infrastructure and you got to tap into the grid. But after that, it's sunlight. Yes. As far as I know, the sun will be here for a long time. Yeah. It's not going anywhere in our lifetime. And then if it explodes, who cares? Cause we're all going to die. Okay. What are your passions and areas of focus? and do you do any regular real estate besides land? Just land, just dirt and just the, you know, our model. I've had some people call and say, bad, I got, I got acres in North Dakota. Can you help me sell it? Nope. Don't touch it. Sorry. We stick to, we stay in our lane. That's all we do. I mean, I have hobbies and stuff on the side, but pretty much I sell dirt. That's my main occupation to earn income other than social security and the income from our rental. What's been your biggest struggle putting this all together and helping folks achieve this? Finding finders. referral partners and finding investors. Okay. mean, 25,000 strictly referral business strictly, right? Well, either I meet them personally myself. I got a mixer, a chamber of commerce event online. I do a lot of LinkedIn connecting and chat with people. So either I meet them directly myself that way or I meet someone who wants to be a finder. Let's say it's a CPA. no, let's use mortgage. Mortgage consultants are really struggling as far as I can tell, because nobody's refinancing because the interest rates are too high or they already refinanced. Sales are down, so they're not getting a lot of new sales. So mortgage consultants, I've heard a lot of them have gone back to regular jobs. So I say, look, you've got a database. You've got a lot of people that you know, and that trust you. Why don't you become a finder? It's free. takes an hour and half to become a finder. I'll train you what to say to them and how to introduce them to me. And if they buy a property, even at $25,000, you'll make 500 bucks. paid 2 % of the gross sales price. So, consultants are good people for me to meet and turn them into finders. And then they send me people. The best finder I've ever had, Shana, is a podcast host. And it was my first podcast. was June of 2021, right in the middle of COVID. I didn't even know what a podcast was. I got dressed up because I thought it was recorded visually and he laughed. That's what it is to me. Well, back then it was just audio. Right. That's how he laughed when he saw me when I dressed up. said, how come you're not in the t-shirt? I said, well, I don't you record it. said, yeah, I record your voice. And I was thinking ahead in the future. didn't even know. Like I, I would have never started a podcast if it wasn't video, to be honest. I started on YouTube and then eventually I bring it out. Well, think he, does record the video part, but he doesn't really use it. It's just audios. Anyway, he puts me on a show for an hour. He edits it, does a couple of things, and then he sends it to his database, which at that point was, think 25,000 people. I have closed 22 deals just from his referrals. And that led me to think, MG, I need to do more podcasts. So guess what? I've done maybe 30 more in the, since 2021. So in three years, probably 10 a year, do almost one a month. I think I've gotten either zero or one. No, I've gotten no, no sales from all of the other ones combined. and 22 from just his one. So was I ahead of the time? I don't know. Did I make the right decision to do the podcast? I don't know. They're still out there. I still get an occasional person calling, Hey, I saw you on so-and-so and I got to go look up so-and-so because it's three years ago. don't even remember. I remember you. Of course I have to say that out loud. But you know, I thought podcasts were the way. So yeah, that's the struggle for me is finding either direct investors myself. and or somebody who wants to be a finder who will refer business to me. And that's pretty much how I get my, my leads. I have an idea. I'll talk to you about it after the show. Okay. I love ideas. It'd be phenomenal if it goes over. Okay. Okay. So let's see, what else do we have? What are your interests and passions outside of land banking? So I am a very avid traveler. My wife and I probably do five, six, seven trips a year. And some are now being two trips, two week trips instead of one week trips. We've already got a January, we're flying to Sydney, Australia for five nights and then a two week cruise to New Zealand. In May, we're going to our two time shares in Cancun a week at each one. And we're looking at one of my bucket lists is the Galapagos. So we're to do Galapagos Islands where they have the giant tortoises and the blue-footed boobies and sea lions. And it's off the coast of Ecuador. And I've wanted to go there for years. So we're actually starting to look at that. And that's a little more pricey one because you got to go on a tour. can't just wing it. So yeah. A lot of truck, go to, we go to Tahoe almost every year. go to Hawaii for two weeks every other year. So yeah, a lot of travel. love traveling. And my second biggest hobby or passion is playing Texas Hold'em tournaments. I play live twice a week at my Moose Lodge here in Castro Valley every Monday and every Friday. That's where you will find me playing live. And the other nights I get on club WPT, which is. Uh, an online portal and, I play both for just points, but I also play in some cash tournaments and I've won, you know, 10 bucks here, 25 bucks. My biggest win was 125, but some of them are, you can actually win a seat to the annual event at the win in Las Vegas, which is like $10,000 to buy in. And you can win a seat plus airfare and hotel and all that. I haven't won one of those yet, but that's one of my. My bucket list is to win a seat at one of those and go play live in Vegas for a million dollars or $5 million prize pool. Yeah. That gets me excited. Yeah. Those are my two pets. When you go to New Zealand, can you do me a favor? Sure. don't know. I said yes and then it's like, no, stuck foot in mouth. Okay. Go ahead. Sorry to interrupt. Are you going to see the wall that they built for the filming of Game of Thrones? There's one or two tours at one of the stops, but they're like 500 or $600 per person. Oh, you get off that cruise ship. The cheapest tour was like 60 bucks and that was an hour and a half ride around the city. But they have some of the, like all that you can get a driver and do like an all day thing for $1,500 each. Little bit out of my price range. So I don't think we'll be there. But there might be other people on the ship that would see it. this is it. So what is it? Tell me again. It's a wall. Okay. Have you seen the game of Thrones? No, not, not a fan of that one. You can see my little in the background. Those of you that are watching a Grogu, I'm a big star wars and Mandalorian and all that. And we watch a lot of, uh, uh, Viking stuff, but Never got into game of thrones. Never got into game of thrones. All right. So it's a, they built the wall for the set. Yes. There is supposed to be this big giant ice wall that has magic weaved into it when it was built to try to keep these kind of creatures from coming down into the part of the continent that is inhabited. And telling you if you and your wife ever just want to sit down and watch an episode here, there, here, there, and kind of get through all it is. It has got the most ratings of any movie or TV show or anything ever created globally. Well, do me a favor offline. If you can find the name of the city that it's near, because we're stopping at five. five or six different cities in New Zealand. I'll see if it's close to one of those cities and we could just take a cab. We don't have to go on a tour. We might just get out and get an Uber driver. It might be a one or two hour drive because it's out in the middle of the island somewhere. They can't do it near the coast. Most of that stuff is where the glaciers are, which is in the middle of the country. But yeah, I'll see if we can. But send me the name of the city and I'll at least look it up and I'll do a little Game of Thrones research to find this ice wall and, then see, if I don't go, there may be other people on the ship itself that will go and they'll have pictures. So what do you just want a picture of it? do you want a piece of picture? mean, know it's not as big as it is, as it is on the show, but wow. To see, to see the real thing that they actually use. Okay. I wrote it down, just send me the name of the city. I'll see if we dock there and then I'll, I'll see what I can do. No, no. Sure, but no promises. And here's another question that I know some of the listeners are probably going to be asking. when with this land purchasing, this is only like purchasing land in the United States. Correct. Yeah. It's only within 60 mile radius of downtown LA with one little caveat. I have sold a couple of parcels in desert hot springs, which is outside the 60 miles. We have some people that have brought in Cathedral city and Palm Springs, that little area, and that's maybe 90 miles outside of LA. So it's a little bit further. You're only doing it in California, not in other major Not even in Northern California, no place. 60 miles around downtown LA. So you get one of those little thingies that we've compassed that we used in math and in junior high school. You put one point on downtown LA and you do the circle and we're inside that. It's a compass. It's a compass. protractor. I don't think it's a protractor. I think it's a co, I don't know. have to go. That math is so far behind me. I don't remember, but I think it was called a compass. You put the little pencil and it has a point and you put the point. in the middle of whatever, where you want. And then you kind of twist it around and it draws a circle around the point. I'll have to look it up. I can look it up now, but I don't want to digress from what we're doing. Okay. So what is some advice that you have for someone just starting out in this niche of land banking? Do diligence in any investment, crypto, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, syndications, gas stations. I don't care what it is. No matter what you invest in, do your due diligence. Read, do the homework, do the research. Now with us, we do that for you. But you still want to do the diligence on me and our company and you want examples and you want to ask me about my land and all that stuff. I don't want you just taking my word for it. And then you'll be pissed off at me in five years if it doesn't sell. No, you need to understand what you're getting yourself into. So do your own due diligence on any investment, matter what it is and not just your friends. Cause they probably didn't do their homework. So read articles, Google things, call up industry leaders, call you, call, is the guy's name Pace that's in your community there? Call him, get his advice. Some of these gurus are very knowledgeable and open to chatting. They like to meet new people. They like to mentor and help people. ask a lot of questions, do your homework. And when you finally feel it, both gut level and brain level. It's gotta be heart and mind. Then you make the investment. If you're going just on your mind, sometimes you'll screw up. And if you're going just on your heart, sometimes you'll screw up. So do you have any other stories, like another favorite story that you'd like to tell us before we start to wrap up? the one story. So going back, remember I said, my wife came with me to hear Marcella at the, at the. thing and then she bought the So, January 31st, 2018 is a Wednesday. remember like it was yesterday. So over almost seven years now, come home from work. I actually don't remember the weather, but I do remember the set. come home from a real estate meeting that I had been at and my wife is sitting at the kitchen table. She works at home, not unusual, but she's usually slaving away for Oracle who she worked for at the time. in her office. It's kind of odd to see her at like 9 30 in the morning sitting in the kitchen. And I knew something was wrong. So I sat down. I said, okay, I think I know what happened, but why don't you tell me? She said, I've been dismissed from Oracle. said, you got fired. No, let go. No downsize, right-sized, made available for another job offer. She said, I've been dismissed. said, what the hell is dismissed? She said, Oracle made up a new category. got rid of a whole bunch of us turned out to be a lot of older women that they replaced with a lot of young Indian guys from India at about half the salary. found this out much later. She said, I've been dismissed. Oracle made up this new cat. They will not pay unemployment. So I am done working, Brad. I'm not going to find another job. We're through. We're going to live on your coaching salary. was a business coach at the time, mostly real estate. I've been doing that for 30 some odd years at that point. More than that. 30 something years. And I said, okay, that's fine. Sorry to hear it. She said, yeah, I got to drive over and drop off my badge and my laptop. I said, okay. Well, we're still going out for dinner tonight with Marcella and her husband Rick. She said, okay. I said, yeah, we'll tell them our woeful story. And of course they'll be, it's so bad. We're so sorry. So we go out to dinner, we sit down, we tell them our story and they both start laughing at us. Shauna, I'm not kidding. And Marie and I are, what the F? I said, did you just hear what we said? Marie lost a six figure job, 401k match, free money from the company, all of our health benefits, vacation pay, sick leave, it's all gone today. And Marcelo says, Brad, you're not going to believe this. She said, two weeks ago, we scheduled tonight's dinner just to get together. I said, yeah. What's your point? She said, well, you know, there was a moratorium on velour, the name of the company is velour. There was a moratorium on the company hiring new real estate agents. Well, last week they lifted the moratorium and we came to the dinner tonight to surprise you and invite you to join our team as the first agent on our real estate team. What? Two hours later, have grilled them six ways to Sunday. What's it like working there? What can I expect? Yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah. And I have to get rid of all my coaching clients. He says, well, no, just let them, you know, through attrition. You don't have to like fire them today. And I didn't say yes. We're driving home. My wife says, what's up? One door shut, really tightly closed. My job is done. One door open really wide. You love dirt. You just got your real estate license two months ago, which was the true story. I'd gotten it for another reason. I won't go into today. I'll tell it to you offline, but I got my real estate license. So I had it. She said, I don't understand. This is like, you love dirt. We own a lot of land ourselves. You're a great salesperson. She said, Marie, they're asking me to give up. At that point, it was a 40 year career. It's 2018. Yeah. It's 40 years from 1978. to 2018, I had been a business coach and a seminar leader and a speaker. said, they're asking me to leave what I've done for the last four decades. She leans over in the car, gets right up next to my ear and she says, Brad, you'd be an idiot not to accept this new career opportunity. And I did not marry an idiot. And I laughed so hard. I almost, I almost peed my pants and almost drove off the road. was laughing. I was laughing so hard. And when I stopped laughing and got the car back on the road, said, you're right. I would be an idiot and I'm not. I will take the job. February 1st, first phone call I made after I woke up was to call Marcella and say, I'm in. What do I do? They said, switch your license over February 9th of 2018. I became a real estate agent working for the company. And that's what I've done for the last six plus years. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I love that. And everybody that I tell it to does, if they don't outright laugh, they at least smile or chuckle and they say, your wife's really smart and something like that. And it's true. That's the exact quote from her. You'd be an idiot. is to have, you know, uh, a built in accountability partner and support. I mean, Amen. Sisters. What else I did add. Amen. Absolutely. Due diligence. Yes. And then accountability is close behind. Um, Marcel is my coach, my mentor, my friend, my business partner. I was actually at her Rick, her husband I've known for 25 years. Uh, I was at their wedding in New Mexico. mean, I, you know, Yeah. But Marcella and Rick, both keep coaching me to always need to come 73 and I still have a coach. You don't seem 73 and you don't look 73. Thank you. And my wife would say, well, act 73. When I turned 71, she says, you're reversed. You're actually, you act like you're 17, like one seven, not seven one. Now it's 73, but yeah, no, I, I try to be lighthearted and. take every day as it comes, be grateful beyond, thank the Lord and whoever else is listening and the gods, goddesses, whoever's out there. I've had a really blessed life and continue to have one. And I think I stay young because I act young. I feel young. I don't let my aches and pains get the better of me. and I'm a, what is it? Can I C-A-N-I constant and never ending improvement. That's me. I, yes, I can. I am constantly reading, going to seminars, learning. Oh yeah. And that's how people can get ahold of me. Yes. I was listening. I just wanted to leave it up there long enough for people to be able to see. Thank you. Um, you're welcome. These are all the ways you can get ahold of Brad. The best ways to get ahold of Brad. Um, LinkedIn you're on there a lot, right? Yep. And, email. Email is best because I answer all emails within 24 hours. Even when I'm on a cruise ship in New Zealand, we're going to have wifi and I will log in for about five minutes a day. I learned the hard way. You let email go for a few days or a week and it takes forever to catch up. You unsubscribe from stuff. Which I do a lot now, but no, I check it even when we're on vacation, we're buying the package to have wifi on board. I will check in in the morning once. And most likely in in the late afternoon or evening. And I'll just, and sometimes I just email back to people and say, I'm on vacation. will contact you February 27th when I return. But at least they heard from me and it's not like he's ghosting me or gaslighting me or whatever the current word is. Um, at least I get back to people within 24 hours, just to let them know that I got their email. Yeah. So if you would like to, if you're interested in land banking. links are in the description for how to get ahold of Brad and also make sure that you mentioned that you saw Brad on sub to Shana. This is the way. So he knows you're legit. and also I have two questions that I like to ask on my guests at the end of the show. The first question is what does success look like to you? Wow. That's it. guess success is being happy, accomplishing the goals that you set out for yourself, letting go of the ones that you didn't get and not feeling guilty about not reaching them and doing for others. In fact, this morning before this call, I was out volunteering for Meals on Wheels. Hopefully a lot of your listeners have heard. So I deliver food to people that are basically shut in there. They're incapacitated. Most of them are too frail. And sometimes I'm the only person that they see all day. So you got to give to others. So, I volunteer for the American Red Cross. I'm a big fan of the American Red Cross, nonpartisan. They help people in need. In fact, this Sunday, I'm going to get trained in all day training so I can be a shelter worker and I can go to those shelters that they open, you know, when there's a disaster. And that's like, you're deployed, not, not in the military sense, but you actually get deployed for like a week or two outside of your home to someplace. And you live like that. You live in the shelter with the people that you're helping. So yeah, that's success to me is helping charity to donate to guys. Red cross, red cross. Absolutely. For sure. And the second question is, if you could leave our listeners and viewers with a piece of profound advice, potentially life-changing in work or in business or both, what would that be? ordinary things consistently done produce extraordinary results. Ooh, I got another, but that's the first one. more time in case people want to write it down. I'll say it a little slower. ordinary things consistently done produce extraordinary results. Think of a drop of water on a rock. Not much at the beginning, but if it drips every single day for years, decades, maybe even centuries, it will drill a hole through that rock. Yes, I heard this. I heard it a different way before. heard water cuts through rock, not because of its strength, but because of its persistence or something like that. I know I'm messing up. Same idea. Same idea. The Grand Canyon didn't get made because the Colorado River was so strong and powerful that it could cut through the rock. It took centuries, eons of steadily flowing water day after day, 24-7, 365, with no shutoff valve, and it just kept flowing. And over time, it produced an extraordinary result. Love it. idea. Same concept. I want to thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been an absolute pleasure. Well, thank you. Likewise. I just, love sharing and hopefully people learn some stuff, not just about dirt, but about themselves and, and life. And hopefully they'll pass it on to others and listen into more of your shows. Yes. Yes. And also maybe they found a new way to, another thing to invest in. or a new way to invest. Hopefully we'll see. Yeah. So thank you so much for coming on the show and hang back afterwards. We'll have a little chat before we part ways. Absolutely. We'll see you next time. Bye guys. Bye everybody.