Fatal Land Buying Mistake #1

Mike: Welcome back to the FlipNerd.com REI Classroom, where experts from across the real estate investing industry teach you quick lessons to take your business to the next level. And now, let’s meet today’s expert host.

Mark: Hey, it’s Mark Podolsky, The Land Geek, with TheLandGeek.com, and I am pleased to be back on FlipNerd REI Classroom, still rocking a treadmill desk. Look, if you’re sitting right now, you might as well be smoking. Sitting is the new smoking.
All right, let’s get into it because what I want to talk about today is how to avoid fatal land buying mistakes.

Mike: This REI Classroom real estate lesson is sponsored by UglyOpportunities.com.

Mark: And the key concept or the key thing that I want to stress is that I’ve seen this happen. I’ve been investing in land since 2001. I’ve done 5,000 land flips. I’ve seen this happen online, and the first fatal land buying mistake that I see is when people go and they don’t confirm ownership of who owns the property.
So I’ll give you an example. I was actually flipping a piece of land on eBay, and someone went in and literally copied my ad, set up a new eBay account, and someone went in and actually wired money to a fake Russian escrow company, several thousand dollars because they thought they were getting such a good deal. This all could have been avoided if all they did was contact the county and confirm who owned the property, and then they would’ve seen that that company that was advertising the property, it wasn’t the exact same company. It was similar than my company, and they could’ve avoided it, and it’s a very simple process to do.
So to confirm ownership, number one, you can go in and just contact the county recorder and give them the legal description or the assessor’s parcel number, and they’ll say, “Oh, yeah. This is the company that owns the property.” You can even request a copy of the original recorded deed with the county, and that can confirm ownership. And typically, because we’re dealing with smaller land transactions, the traditional way is just to use a title company, and they’ll do all the hard work.
But to save money, if it’s $5,000 or less, I’ll actually close without using a title company. So we’ll actually do our own due diligence and our own research, and it’s very simple. It’s frighteningly simple, but if you don’t do this step, it is a fatal land buying mistake, and it can cost you thousands upon thousands of dollars. So there it is.
If you have any more questions, contact me at TheLandGeek.com.

Mike: HomeVestors, the “We Buy Ugly Houses” folks, is a franchise system of hundreds of real estate investors that have purchased over 65,000 houses. If you’d like to learn more about the most powerful real estate investing system in existence, whether you’re a pro looking to take your business to the next level or whether you have no experience at all but a burning passion to be successful in real estate investing, please visit FlipNerd.com/ugly to learn more.
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