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Today, we had the pleasure of hosting Mark Podolsky, the owner of Frontier Properties, a leading land investment company, and widely known as The Land Geek. Mark brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table, having completed over 5,500 land deals and earning his company, Frontier Equity Properties, an impressive A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau.
Beyond his success in land investments, Mark is also sharing how his passion for land has led him to unexpected ventures. First as a podcast host, where he generously shares geeky tips, tricks, shortcuts, and wisdom for free and also as a coach and a mentor.
In the interview, Mark’s passion for raw land investments was evident as he elaborated on why raw land is often considered the best passive income source. He highlighted the unique advantages and opportunities that the raw land market presents, shedding light on the untapped potential that can be harnessed by investors willing to navigate this unconventional territory.
Mark has found a calling as a teacher, coach, and mentor to a growing community of individuals eager to succeed. He expressed his gratitude for being surrounded by smart, quality-driven individuals who share his passion for success. In this episode, Mark’s humility and genuine desire to guide others toward financial success shine through.
In This Episode
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His background and experience as the owner of Frontier Properties, a prominent land investment company
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Why raw land is considered the best passive income source and unique advantages and opportunities in the raw land market
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Practical advice for both seasoned investors and beginners specifically in landflipping
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The impact and benefits of being surrounded by like-minded people and importance of mentorship and shared success
Welcome to another episode on Wealth Strategy Secrets. Today, we are joined by Mark Podolsky, a.k.a the Land Geek, who is also the owner of Frontier Properties and has years of experience as the go-to expert for investing in undeveloped land within the United States.
Mark will provide some insights for those of you looking for alternative passive income streams; looking to free up your time by having some alternative assets in your portfolio and creating a side hustle that could scale. You’ll find this one interesting. I look forward to the chat with Mark. Mark, welcome to the show.
Dave Wolcott, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Mark and I learned that we’re both strategic coaches and Genius Network members, which is cool. We have some alignment in terms of values and philosophy and where we’re headed. Why don’t you tell the audience who isn’t familiar with you, tell us about your background and how you got into Land Flipping in the first place?
The best buyers are the neighbors.
If we rewind the tape to 2000, I was miserable and micro-managed everything – did a 45-minute commute to work and back to investment banker, specializing in mergers and acquisitions with private equity groups. It got bad for me, that I wouldn’t get the Sunday blues anticipating Monday coming around. I’d get the Friday blues anticipating the weekend going by fast and having to be back at work on Monday.
My firm hires this guy. He’s telling me that as a side hustle, he’s buying up raw land- pennies on the dollar. He’s flipping them online and he’s making a 300% return on his investment. I’m looking at companies all day long, and a great company has 15% EBITDA margins or free cash flow. An average company is 10%.
I’m looking at companies all day long with less than 10%. At first, I don’t believe him. So I’ve got three grand saved up for car repairs; I went to New Mexico with him. I do exactly what he tells me to do. I buy ten half-acre parcels at an average price of $300 each. I flipped them online and they all sell for an average price of $1,200 each – 300%. It worked.
I took all that money and went to another auction. This is in Arizona where I live. I’m buying lots and acreage for nothing. I flipped all that land and I made over $90,000 cash. So I went to my wife and said, “Honey, I’m going to quit my job and become a full-time land investor.” And she said, “Absolutely not.” Because she was pregnant, so I agreed. It took eighteen months for the land investing income to exceed the investment banking income. I quitted. I’ve been doing it ever since. I’ve done over 6,000 transactions and counting now and I still love it.
That’s cool. What a leap to make that leap and follow your passion for getting into land flipping full-time, especially coming from investment banking. That was quite a career path that you had to veer right off. What was compelling about that to you? Was it the fact that you could double your money quickly? What was it that was driving?
What was driving me from looking at companies all day long and understanding markets was that this is an inefficient market. It was massive; it still is massive and it’s still inefficient. I remember doing a back-of-the-napkin calculation in year two. I said, “These margins are unsustainable. At the end of the day, if all of this happens and all these people come in, we’re clicking still at a 30% gross margin business.” Which is a good business.
We’re talking about an asset you don’t have to maintain, you don’t have to protect, and you can’t be destroyed. And there are a lot of things that were compelling to me about it. To this day, it’s still that way. There are not that many inefficient markets left.
Interesting. Why don’t we unpack what is land flipping? I’m sure there are a lot of people in the audience who haven’t heard about your model. Why don’t you take us through the basics of how it works?
The way we view the economic cycle is that, at any point, it’s always a great time to buy; everything is on sale, and we have the patience to capitalize.
Let us use you, Dave, as a case study. Let’s assume you own five acres of raw land and you live in Florida. I’m going to assume that you own the five acres of raw land where I live in Arizona, and you owe $200 in back taxes. So you’re essentially advertising two important things to me – number one, you have no emotional attachment to the raw land, you’re in Florida, and the property is in Arizona.
Number two, you’re financially distressed in some weird way because when we don’t pay for things like our property taxes, we don’t value them in the same way. As a result, the county treasurer keeps sending you notices saying that if you don’t pay your property taxes, you’re going to lose that property to a tax deed or a tax lien investor.
All I’m going to do is look at your five-acre parcel and I’m going to analyze the last twelve to eighteen months of comparable sales; I’m gonna take the lowest comparable sale and divide by four – what Warren Buffett would call a 300% margin of safety. So I’m going to send an actual offer to you for your five-acre parcel. Using easy math, let’s say the lowest comparable sale is $10,000. I send you an offer of $2,500.
You accepted it. Why? Because for you, $2,500 is better than nothing. In reality, 3% to 5% of people are going to accept my “top-dollar” offer. But now that you’ve accepted it, I have to go through due diligence or in-depth research. I have to confirm you still own the property.
I have to confirm that the back taxes are only $200. I have to make sure there’s been no breaks in the chain of title, no liens, or encumbrances. Because it’s such an inexpensive purchase, it’s less than $5,000, I’ll outsource that to my team in Jamaica – costs about $11 each. They are connected to an American title company. Now, if it was more than $5,000, I would take any title risk and I would close traditionally through an American title company; but this is only $2,500.
We’ll do our due diligence. While we’re doing it, we’re creating our marketing piece because I’m getting the aerial maps, plat maps, and satellite maps. I’m finding out what are the roads like, how far it is from the nearest services. I might have somebody local go out there for 50 bucks and shoot video, maybe take a drone out there to take pictures. I want to know what the neighbors are doing.
If you help enough people get what they want, you will ultimately get what you want.
98% of the time, everything checks out in due diligence. These typically don’t have long complicated changes to the title as well. So everything checks out. I’m going to send you a check for $2,300. I’m going to send the treasury check for $200. I own it free and clear. Now I’m going to flip it and I’m going to make a cashflow like a rental home. I have a built-in best buyer. Do you know who it is?
Me.
No, you sold it to me. You’re not going to buy it back. Any other guesses?
Other people in your network?
That’s a good guess, but they’re good. They’re probably the second-best buyer. The best buyers are the neighbors. I’m going to send out neighbor letters saying, “Here’s your opportunity to protect your views, your privacy, and know your neighbors.” The neighbor’s pass.
I will go to my buyer’s list. The buyer’s list passes, I’ll go to a website – you may have heard of. It’s called Craigslist. It’s the 15th most trafficked website in the United States. I’ll go to one – I know you’ve heard of called Meta, where the buy-sell groups and the marketplace, and then I’ll go to the lands-related website – landmoto.com, land.com, landandfarm.com, landsamerica.com, landflip.com, landhub.com, and landcentry.com.
These are all platforms where people buy and sell raw land, but the secret is in the pricing. I’m going to make it irresistible. All I’m going to ask for is a $2,500 down payment for someone else to control that five-acre parcel, and then I’ll make it a car payment.
Let’s say $297 a month and 9% interest for the next 84 months – I got a one-time sale of $2,500. Now I get my money out on the down payment and I’m getting $297 a month for the next 84 months and a 9% interest. No renters, no rehabs, no renovations, no rodents. Because I’m not dealing with the tenant, I’m exempt from Dodd-Frank, RESPA, and the SAFe Act – all this onerous real estate legislation. It’s a simple game. We can create enough land notes where our passive income exceeds our fixed expenses and we’re working because we want to, not because we have to.
What is the average transaction?
It depends on the average transaction size. Right now we’re averaging maybe $7,500. It’s inexpensive.
It’s interesting because there is some leveling going on. We have a lot of sophisticated listeners on the show who are advanced in terms of their portfolio, and their knowledge. Sometimes they’re looking for a larger size transaction to do that. Are you able to also group these transactions?
What we’ll do is, let’s say I’m working with an investor, and the minimum is about $150,000, so we can deploy that right away. On average, we’re deploying about $400,000 to $500,000 a month into raw land. What we’ll typically look for to deploy large amounts of capital is Node Portfolios, which will bring us to passive income right away.
You are the type of person who strives to be the best version of yourself—there’s no summit for those who embrace the journey; you never truly reach the top.
We’ll buy that at a discount and we’ll also buy larger parcels that we can subdivide. We did a $1,600 deal in Tennessee. It’s a multimillion-dollar deal. We’re doing the roads and the power. We’re doing small transactions, but in volume as well.
Got it. Do you guys crossover into Land Entitlement at all?
No, that’s a completely different model. It’s a slower model. For the velocity of money, we don’t do the land entitlement.
Are there any tax benefits in investing in Raw Land?
There’s no depreciation in raw land. You can conduct a Cost Segregation Analysis to identify assets eligible for accelerated depreciation beyond standard building components. It’s a more advanced strategy, but typically there is not a tax benefit in raw land unless you’re going to invest through a self-directed vehicle. Then you can get these huge returns tax-free in a Roth or tax-deferred in an SEP.
Got it. So it’s either a cash flow play or appreciation growth that is what you’re looking for.
We’re more a cashflow play than we are an appreciation play.
What is the average hold period as well?
We want to hold the thirty days or less. We want to make that land cash flow. We don’t want that passive income. We’ll get cash hits, but typically, we’ll take that cash and we’ll redeploy it in the morning.
Can you talk to us about some real metrics? If you put out a hundred offers, what’s the uptake that you get on those?
About three to five will respond and for every a hundred offers, we’ll do one deal.
What about the market right now, has it become more saturated? I’ve heard of more and more people doing this over the past few years, are there still opportunities, or how does the market look from your vantage point?
If you lack education, understanding of your market, and knowledge of the numbers, then you are taking a significant risk.
The market is great right now. More people are doing it, but it validates the market more. Imagine if ten years ago, I sent you an offer on your five-acre parcel. That might’ve been the only offer you got. But now you might get four offers in the mail all in the same price range validating to you as “This is what my land is worth now.” At some point in time, it’s easier to get that sale.
As far as the market is concerned, there are billions of acres of raw land available. There’s no big money in it. There are no private equity groups and there are no hedge funds. They have too much money to be in this niche. So we’re like in this Goldilocks Niche where you get little money – it’s a problem – but if you have too much money, it’s a problem.
There could be a million people in this niche, and you couldn’t think of a more boring Real Estate Niche. It’s not like you go to the HGTV network or the DIY Network, because they flip the land, but both the ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures show raw land. Everybody will run out of money before they run out of deal flow.
Where we are in the economic cycle – do you foresee any impact, any fluctuations in the land market given?
The way we look at the economic cycle is at any point in the cycle, it’s going to be a great time to buy. Everything is on sale and we have patient capital. We’re still going to get our returns as we rebalance the portfolio and rebalance the pricing to that current economic climate. We have an equilibrium where it’s easy to buy and it’s easy to sell. We have a hot market where it’s harder to buy, but they fly off the shelf. We’re more on the equilibrium side right now in certain markets. Like where you’re at in Florida, it’s hotter.
What does your model look like? How are you helping people do this? Are you doing training or education? Do you have a fund? What would your model look like if someone wanted to partake and get involved?
I help everyone along the economic spectrum. If you have more money or you have more time than money, we have free training up to one-on-one coaching. We have to do it yourself, we have done it with you and we have done it for you. If you have more money than time, then we have a fund and we have a Done-For-You program.
If you’re at a W-2 job, you want to create enough passive income to exceed your fixed expenses and quit that job. We have training for you as well, so you could do it yourself. We help rich people become wealthy. We also help people who I call, “Solo Economic Dependency,” which means – they’re not personally working, they’re not making any money to get out of that and create more financial security and allow themselves the freedom to work when, where, and with whom they want.
What would say is the biggest risk in investing in a land like this?
The biggest risk is not knowing what you’re doing because we make our money on the buy. If you’re not educated, you don’t understand your market, and you don’t understand the numbers, then it’s a risk. There’s also environmental risk if you go into the wrong market. We avoid the East Coast – I don’t want to be in any industrial areas like Ohio or New Jersey, where I could be buying in a superfund site and I’m liable for millions of dollars of cleanup.
It is deeply rewarding and fulfilling to not only absorb information but also to give, serve others, and help them in a mutually beneficial way.
You can go to a website called epa.gov to determine where those superfund sites are and avoid them. But generally speaking, you want to be in the Southwest, a bit in the Northwest – California, Florida, and a bit in the Midwest – are going to be your best markets. Lots of inexpensive raw land.
I always like to think of myself, not only as a buyer but also as a seller, and think about the transaction in 360 degrees. It’s bringing up a scenario for us. My wife was gifted in her father’s estate plan a piece of property in Upstate New York. To your point, she will say, “Here’s another tax bill that we keep getting every year.” They’ve had the property for over thirty years and keep paying the tax bill.
What was once an asset is now a liability. I would buy that from you, and you would be thrilled to get it off your hands.
Take it off my hands. Exactly. I can see that connection or the impetus for a seller – a motivated seller, or to your point having neighbors who are adjacent to you. If you buy that land, maybe your property is bigger, and you know that there’s not going to be a development on it, and probably increases the overall value of your existing if it’s a single-family residence.
Absolutely. We make land affordable for everybody. If you get a job, you can afford our land.
Have you started to incorporate AI into any of the work? I can imagine this type of work is tons of different data following up on different offers. It seems that every data is intensive and has lots of follow-up. Or are you doing that more with outsourcing?
We outsource a lot of our work with Virtual Assistants. We also have two software programs that we own – GeekPay, which is a set-and-forget-it payment system. We collect our notes on an automated basis like that. Then we have another program called LGPass, which manages our whole business and automates our mailings.
From an AI perspective, our developers are using AI to code. They can do twice as much work in the same amount of time using ChatGPT, which is good at coding. From a marketing perspective, we’ve got some good prompts to help us with headlines and copy as well. It’s certainly a good intern, but I wouldn’t ship their work without somebody looking at it.
The antidote to financial insecurity is passive income and cash flow.
It’s massive – the potential and the different applications that are going on right now with tons of tools being introduced daily. It’s eye-opening to see that. What do you think about being involved in many top-level entrepreneurial and mastermind groups? What have you learned over the past decades about elevating your game and the power of connection, and what has that meant for you?
There’s true wisdom in that Jim Rohn quote – “You’re the average of the five people you hang out with the most.” So when you start hanging out with people who are ahead of you in many ways; or you can start looking at different businesses, and see these blue ocean strategies where you can incorporate.
What that entrepreneur is doing over here in a different industry, forces you to think differently. Ultimately, if you’re the type of person who joins these mastermind groups. You’re already the type of person who wants to work on being the best version of yourself – there’s no top of the mountain for those types of people. It’s the journey. You never get to the top.
It’s deeply rewarding and deeply fulfilling to not only take the information but also then to give, serve other people, and help them in this mutually beneficial way. There’s always the connection where you don’t find someone that you genuinely like because they’re an entrepreneur like you. You have to be a little crazy to be an entrepreneur.
To be with these like-minded people, it’s amazing. I love this Nassim Taleb quote – “If you know why you’re friends with someone, you’re not friends with them.” When you get to a point, you would want to help people and then people to help you. Joe Polish is always saying, “Life gives to the giver,” and I think it’s true.
Zig Ziglar’s famous quote, “If you help enough people get what they want, then you’ll get what you want.” I’d like to get your take on this as well – it’s about transitioning from investment banking, that corporate, and that Wall Street-type philosophy. It took me a lot of years, a lot of learning and scars, to break free from that mold that’s all ingrained in us.
Knowledge plus action is true power; educating yourself is key to understanding what’s possible.
From a wealth perspective, it’s the same thing. Even going back to my high school days, the 401(k) is relatively new. But all people talk about is what investing is investing in the stock market, putting everything in the 401(k), and putting things in a 529 Plan for your kids. Then have someone smarter than you run the whole thing.
It takes a lot of courage for people to break out of that mold and say, “I’m going to go invest in land flipping.” Because you’re going to be the one at the family dinner table that people are going to look at you with three heads and say, “What the hell are you doing? It sounds risky.” I think there’s a big paradigm shift that people need to make before they start investing in alternative assets and even looking at passive income theory as well.
I agree. It is that mindset shift and there’s that great Robert Kiyosaki book – Rich Dad Poor Dad outlines it. You want to buy assets and not liabilities. No one’s going to care more about your money and your life than you.
The antidote to financial insecurity is passive income and cashflow, where if I put a million dollars in the stock market – I’ll feel good one day, then I’m going to feel terrible the next day, and I’m never going to feel secure as opposed to – if I can cashflow this much per month, and I can get up to 200% return above that.
Even if there’s a massive swing, I still have all my fixed expenses taken care of and I’m living my best life. In the life cycle – when you’re young, you’ve got time and you’ve got energy, but you have no money. In middle age, you’ve got money and energy, but you have no time. Then when we get older, we’ve got money and we’ve got time, but we have no energy.
I feel like passive income provides the trifecta for enjoying life at its peak, which is unfortunately short—exactly what we strive for. We want that freedom, we want that autonomy. True wealth is getting to a point where your passive income far exceeds your fixed expenses and life becomes much richer. You’ve got the time to focus on what’s the most important thing in life – your relationships.
I was at a Genius Network meeting and there was a great line by Frank Ostaseski, the guy who owned Zen Hospice. He sat with 2,500 people. On their deathbed, they asked themselves two questions: “Did I love it? Or was I loved?” That’s it. How will you reach the point where true wealth means having time, rather than just solving your money problems? Lots of people can solve that. But money and time problems are solved so that you can focus on the most important things in your life.
I love that. It’s spot on with our philosophy around Holistic Wealth. It’s all about values. It’s tough for people out there that we’re living under an antiquated paradigm because there is still this societal norm that we retire at age 65.
Then, with all of the financial planning models – they do the Monte Carlo Simulation. Then you’re going to start to kill your golden goose at 65 and take out 4% or less per year. It’s interesting because we’re talking about passive income and having cash flow. Retirement is cash flow at age 65.
If we can bring it at age 35 or 45 even earlier, you have that cash flow, and you’ve covered that financial security layer on Maslow’s Hierarchy, then life can be much more enriching with the relationships where you can truly add value and move that away. I know it’s hard to break out of the mold – that everyone around you is trying to force you into.
That’s where listening to a podcast like yours helps people broaden their perspectives. Because if you’re spending all day listening to CNBC, or you’re online and you’re clicking on some type of Kiplinger or The Motley Fool article, the algorithm keeps feeding you that. You keep seeing more of what you click on.
You never expand and see that there are all these alternative investments. There’s this whole world out there that could be solving your problems and you don’t even see it. If you’re not breaking out and joining some other mastermind groups as well; you’re the average of the five people you’re spending the most time with, and they’re in that world too, you’re never going to see it.
Even now, there are many tax strategies I’m learning. There are many different things out there. I was never exposed to it. I was at a strategic coaching meeting and this woman said, “Do you know what the Dutch sandwich is?” I have no idea what a Dutch sandwich is. This is what Google and Apple are investing in in Europe and Ireland and moving their wealth around. They paid no tax. It’s crazy.
And in knowledge; Joe Polish says, “Knowledge plus action is true power.” Educating yourself is key to understanding what’s even possible. Then align yourself with the right group of people and take action on these things wherever you are on the journey.
Spend time to reflect on what’s best for you and your values. Learn first, and then put your knowledge to the test.
It completely snowballs. You hit that point of your expenses, your passive income exceeding your expenses, and you make decisions differently in your life which is powerful. You have a deeper sense of what’s important because you’re not in the grind all the time.
Absolutely. You get to a point where you want to transcend money. I forgot who said this, but it’s something like “I want a fit body, a calm mind, a house full of love – I can get all those things. But money as a tool helps me accelerate all of those things.” Because I now have the time and the resources to devote to it, I can get a personal trainer. I can go on meditation retreats and work on that.
I can create incredible vacation experiences with my family and work on those relationships in a variety of ways that if you don’t have the resources to do it, you’re stressed out all the time. What do couples fight about the most? Money, sex, and the kids. We can’t help with the other two, but if we can eliminate that big bucket of stress called ‘money,’ it does ripple out. I think it could affect every area of their life.
What do you think listeners can do? If you were able to give one piece of advice on how they could accelerate their wealth trajectory, what would it be?
Keep listening to podcasts like yours, keep getting educated, and figuring out what resonates with them. You want to learn, you want to launch, and take action. Then hopefully it moves the needle. Oftentimes people think, “I’m going to do what my buddy does.” They don’t spend the time to think about what’s best for them and their values. Learn about it first and then test it.
I appreciate your time coming on and educating our audience today. It’s a new insightful strategy, one which I think a lot of people haven’t heard of before. I appreciate you offering a gift to listeners today. If they want to capitalize on that, what is the best connection?
I’ve got a link to our free book called Dirt Rich. It tells my story and gives an overview of what we talked about today in more detail about the land business. They can get that. They have to pay for the shipping. Accredited investors can reach out to me directly if they’re interested in a done-for-you approach, and to learn more about how my team and I can handle it for them.
Excellent. I appreciate it, Mark. Thanks.
Thanks, Dave. I appreciate you.
Thank you, everyone, for tuning in. I look forward to talking to you next week. Until then.
Important Links
Connect with Mark Podolsky
Connect with Pantheon Investments
People
Further Resources
Your 10-Step Actionable Checklist From This Episode
✅ Begin with a small investment, like purchasing raw land parcels for pennies on the dollar, to test the model before scaling.
✅ Ensure the property has no liens, encumbrances, or title issues before finalizing the purchase. Outsource due diligence if needed.
✅ Prepare a marketing strategy using aerial maps, satellite images, and detailed property descriptions. Post listings on platforms like Craigslist, Meta Marketplace, and land-related websites.
✅ Reach out to neighbors or your buyer’s list to sell the land, or use broader channels like online marketplaces if necessary.
✅ Once successful, consider scaling by grouping transactions or purchasing larger parcels, and reinvesting profits to grow your portfolio.
✅ Align with like-minded, high-level entrepreneurs who can challenge and elevate your thinking. Surround yourself with those ahead of you to foster growth.
✅ Engage in mutually beneficial relationships. The more you help others, the more opportunities will come back to you in unexpected ways.
✅ Prioritize cash flow over traditional retirement savings. Focus on building enough passive income to achieve financial independence earlier in life.
✅ Continuously educate yourself on new strategies, from tax optimization techniques to alternative wealth-building approaches.
✅ Visit Mark Podolsky’s website to get a free copy of his book, Dirt Rich, and gain insights into raw land investing and passive income strategies.
About Mark Podolsky
Mark began his real estate journey in 2001 with just $3,000 and no experience, eventually becoming the author of Dirt Rich and owner of Frontier Properties. He has completed over 5,500 land deals, achieving significant returns on investment. After leaving a high-stress corporate job, Mark now coaches others to reach their financial goals. He actively runs his land investing business while teaching effective land investing methods. His journey embodies the commitment to building passive income and helping others succeed.