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About ten years ago I was working in a lucrative, but soul sucking career as an investment banker doing mergers and acquisitions for private companies with a little boutique firm in Phoenix. I was miserable, but I had a conversation with one of our clients that changed my life….

This was a guy that was a “deal guy” that spent half of his life on airplanes and the other half analyzing companies to see if they could buy them really cheaply build them up a bit and then sell them and make themselves obscene amounts of money. Well, he was a bright nebisshy guy and had just made on his last deal tens of millions of dollars. I was talking to him about another deal and asked rather charmingly so where are you putting all of your new found millions? I thought he was going to say something esoteric like 60% bonds, 30% stocks and 10% commodities… Instead he simply said, “Land.” I said, “Huh? Why land? For crying out loud you have made yourself richer than rich analyzing and buying companies? What’s up with land?!!!?” He said in a Zen master tone, “In all of my years investing I’ve never heard of anyone losing money investing in land…”

So I closed a big merger deal, paid my taxes took the rest of the money and told my wife I’m going to invest in land. She was skeptical and already thinks I’m crazy, and says” Mark, please don’t lose all of our money… Just put in a CD or a mutual fund… Please…” I said, “The best investor I know told me he was buying land and I should buy land.” So she says, “Did he tell you how to do it?” I said, “That’s the fun part. It doesn’t matter, if I can’t sell it, the worst case scenario is WE OWN LAND!!!”

She bought my enthusiasm and I went to New Mexico with a buddy of mine, researched some nice dirt in a gorgeous rural area and bought as much as we could afford. Well, that first deal I went and marketed the land on the internet, made some money, bought more land, made some more money and a year and a half later told my boss to shove it and started buying and selling land full time. Well, times are tougher now, and my Wife still asks me when I’m going to get a real job, but I absolutely love the chase and thrill of buying raw dirt. It’s like a high for me. And if I make a mistake and buy something no one else thinks is as great as I think it is I always remind my Wife, “Don’t worry we own land.”

Cool website I found:

http://www.bundle.com/— My Wife and I argue a lot about money and she’s always reminding me how lucky I am that I’m married to her and not her crazy shopaholic friend so and so. Well, now I have some data to strengthen my argument as bundle is a web service focused on letting you compare your spending habits with other people in the country based on your location, age and household composition.  Don’t worry, I”ll still lose the argument…

I have had several in depth conversations with other real estate experts whom believe based on the Government deficit, current policies and our economic foundation of being a Country that “doesn’t make anything” anymore we are headed for a double dip recession in real estate.  If and when this happens, people flock to safety.  

Traditionally, there have been two safety routes for long term investors to hedge inflation and avoid stock market volatility. Buying gold and land.  Generally speaking, I continue to think that land will be a better investment than stocks, bonds and commodities in the future. Land values will rise because of population growth if nothing else. As a finite resource, more people should mean continued demand and appreciating prices, even if the middle-class shrinks some as the consequence of structural changes in the economy.

I  am always acquiring new properties.  If you are interested in learning more about these properties let me know as I only have a handful of lots and have not started marketing these yet online.

Useful websites I have found:

Check out luggage luggagelimits.com.  If you plan on traveling any time soon you will find this site useful. Different airlines have different luggage policies. Frequent travelers know the inconvenience it can cause when one has got extra luggage and the airline either refuses to accommodate it or charges exorbitant fees for carrying it. LuggageLimits is a useful website that can help you avoid such situations. Select the airline, departure and arrival airports, and get the corresponding luggage weight limit.  No registration required which I love!

Check out http://www.crossfit.com.  If your New Year’s Resolution this year was to get fit then this is the site for you.  Crossfit is an online training program which includes exercises and workouts that help in improving the overall physical fitness of a person. Their main website, which goes by the same name, contains detailed information about the program and the exercises included in it. There are demo videos, articles, Crossfit games and even a section for kids. There’s also a Workout of the Day (WOD) posted on the website everyday. The Crossfit training program has been implemented across various institutions around the world which includes police academies and military organizations. The program isn’t intended for beginners. Therefore, if you are a newbie, you should go slow on it.

Want to save some money?  Check out http://www.couponcraze.com/ CouponCraze, as the name suggests, is a site where you can find thousands of coupons and discounts for a wide variety of products and services. The homepage features categories like Today’s Deals, Expiring Soon, Bargain Finder etc on the top, which lets you prioritize your coupon search right from the start. Then you have a long list of coupon categories on the left and tools & popular merchants on the right. The categories range from clothing, electronics, sports and even for occasions like Christmas. When you click on “Redeem Coupon” for a listing, it automatically copies the code and takes you to the merchant site where you need to paste it while checking out. Overall, a nice site for saving money on online shopping.

I saw this site today and thought it was very interesting.  Check out projects.nytimes.com/toxic-waters/polluters.  This site show all the water violations for a city or area.  I think this would be very helpful in the due diligence process in the future when evaluating land.  Of course, I check out all the property we acquire and thankfully the water is still pure.   The importance of water can’t be understated.  If water is not potable or too expensive to obtain via well then the property is just not worth the trouble at any price.  However, with technology I do believe we will soon see areas that were unable to get clean water get it as I addressed in my last update.

Cool sites I have discovered:

There are so many websites on the Internet on any topic, which makes it quite hard to find the most relevant and useful site for a specific purpose on your own. Spring is an online service that makes it easy to find the most useful and consulted sites in any category and ranks them based on their actual popularity among users. Simply enter a keyword i.e. “finance” or “movies” into a search box and press “Go”. You will get a list of relevant websites (4 on each page) along with their image thumbnails. Hover with your mouse over a thumbnail to read website’s short description and see categories it belongs to. Websites are ranked according to their online usage statistics.   Check out www.springo.com

The other site I recommend is for people whom like magazines, but don’t want to pay for them so they read them online.  Check out www.magme.com.

Don’t forget to drop me a line about the site and if you are into Twitter you can follow me http://twitter.com/Landguru.  Right now I’m not tweeting hardly at all, but I’m planning on getting more into it.

Since most of the property we offer is off the grid so to speak we always want to provide you with information on solar energy and alternative sources of energy and living. I found this site– http://www.off-grid.net/ that I think is helpful and inspiring.

Basically, everyone owns land for their own personal reasons, but I have found that 70% of my customers are what I consider “legacy investors”.  That, is they are investing in the property as their legacy for future generations to enjoy, or profit from.  They aren’t looking to build right away, improve the property or even use it recreationally.  They just know they acquired it at the right price and one day their children will be thankful that their parent or parents invested in land so long ago for them as their legacy. In fact, we are starting a new Facebook campaign in the coming weeks with the title “What will your legacy be?” Hopefully, it will strike a chord, and people will be amazed at the quality of land they can invest in right now at amazing terms with us.

Cool website:

www.listenmusic.fm– This is a cool website which lets you listen to free music without having to sign online.  I hope you like it.

I want to open with a bit of market analysis from the land investor’s perspective.  Those with cash are going to be seeing lots of opportunities come their way.  Whether in real estate, land, the stock market or other commodities (like oil), prices are in most cases at 2004 levels. We have all seen this before and those whom slowly buy up assets always do well in the long run in times of uncertainty.   Now is the time to worry about the things we can control.

I am discussing (or arguing) with my wife every week how we can cut our expenses.  Here is a great article by David Pogue the Technology guy writer for the New York Times on how to lower your cable and phone bill–

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/technology/personaltech/08pogue.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=business

I am re-negotiating with everyone.  From my banker, to my auto company, to insurance, to our weekly babysitter everyone’s costs and fees are getting re-examined and shopped.  If you haven’t re-financed your home mortgage yet, now is the time to seriously look at the potential savings.  Check out www.bankrate.com for average rates.

From a land perspective, I am looking at creative and inexpensive ways to improve my land and position myself for higher prices in the future.  I believe in the next few years alternative power, especially wind power for our Nevada property is going to be an incredible selling point down the road.  Here is a link for information on WindPower-

http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_wind.shtml.

Also, I have been getting some questions about well drilling. Check out http://www.welldrilling.com/Search-Drillers.htm for more information. Adding a well or a windmill will definitely increase the value of your land.

Cool Sites:

Another free movie site:  www.watch-movies.net

If you like to do slide shows check out www.animoto.com.