Seth: Hey, everybody. How's it going? This is Seth Williams. You're listening to the REtipster podcast. This is episode 257.

Today, I'm talking with Kay Walker. Kay previously built a big short-term rental business to over 100 properties. And instead of doubling down on that, she pivoted into land investing.

Not because Airbnb stopped working, but because land turned out to be simpler, cleaner, and more profitable per hour for her effort. In this episode, we're going to talk about how her first land deal was kind of accidental and sold in just a few days.

We're going to talk about why she kept her operation intentionally small instead of scaling with big virtual teams. Talk about what she changed in her direct mail strategy that dramatically increased her results. And how running a large Airbnb operation shaped the way that she approaches land today.

So if you want a behind-the-scenes look at land investing from someone who already knows how to build real systems and isn't following the usual playbook, you're going to get that out of this one. Let's jump in. Kay, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

Kay: I'm doing amazing. Thank you for having me, Seth.

Seth: Yeah, of course. So the idea first popped into my mind to interview you here because you had joined our Mindshare meetup about a couple months ago now. And I had seen your name around, but when you were talking, you were just like dropping these knowledge bombs left and right.

I was like, whoa, man, I got to talk to her. So I'm glad you agreed to do this. Why don't we just start with your origin story? So how did you get into land? How'd you get into real estate?

I know I just mentioned your Airbnb background, but just walk me through what life looks like leading into the land business.

Kay: Yeah. So before I got into short-term rentals, I knew I wanted to be in real estate, but I just didn't know what avenue, right? And so I'm like, let me start and get my real estate license. And prior to that, I was in corporate and project management.

And it was a pretty much remote position. I had a good amount of flexibility and freedom. So I did the whole course and took the exam and got licensed. And I remember going on my first listing appointment. And it was through somebody I knew, his mother wanted to sell her home.

And it took all afternoon to be in her house and talk to her and get to know her. And I quickly realized maybe this is not for me. Maybe being an agent is not for me because for me, that just took a lot of time.

And she was very emotional about the home, right? And so I said, okay, maybe I don't want to do this side of it. So I started watching YouTube and all that good stuff. And I came across Airbnbs and I said, let me try this.

So when Airbnb first started or first really got popular, I think the biggest hurdle is what method are you going to do? Are you going to purchase properties, right? That's a little bit harder to get into, or do you want to do like a rental arbitrage method?

And so I said, you know, I'm going to do the rental arbitrage method. So I initially started with that and I got a lot of no's. I went to the nicest buildings, you know, high rises, and they're just like, door in my face. Nope, nope, nope.

And finally, someone said yes. It just went from there once I got my first yes. And along that journey, I ended up expanding into Georgia. So I was in two states, North Carolina, Georgia. And then I ended up purchasing real estate as well, running that operation.

I had cleaning teams that I had hired out, but I found that I had to bring that inside. So we ended up bringing cleaning internal, which was a whole process, but it made our reviews. It was amazing and it gave us a lot of control of the quality of our product. But very busy business.

Seth: And when you say arbitrage, for those who may not be familiar, correct me if I'm wrong, this is where you are basically, signing a rental agreement with the owner and then you're sort of like sub-renting it to these short-term renters. Is that accurate?

Kay: Yep, that is 100% accurate. It was more of a corporate lease. We did it so we can pick up more units at one time and have that professional maintenance in the background.

Going into it, your toilet breaks or the refrigerator stops working or the microwave you need to replace. We don't have to worry about any of that stuff. It was really helpful to start off that way.

Seth: Yeah. I can understand why a landlord might not want to do this. How did you get them to do it? Like, was there some big building where it's like, yeah, we can't find long-term renters. So might as well work with Kay. She'll lease it up and do what she's going to do. Is that how it worked? Or how did you find these people?

Kay: When I started getting all these no's, I looked and I said, let me see what buildings have promos, have like two months free, two and a half months free. They're giving a thousand dollar gift card because it lets me know they need the occupancy, right? And their salespeople in the office, like they need to make their numbers.

That's why I started targeting. So I would have a yes, maybe instead of all the no's, that's how I went about it. And then I figured out their kind of application process and you had to have a certain level of business credit they want to see. You had to become an approved vendor, all those things.

It's kind of like I figured it out as I went. And that really allowed me to scale. Because it's hard to go to one individual owner each time and have to do this and explain the process. But when you're going to a building that has 500 possible units and it's costing them money, for them to give you five of those, they're glad to do it.

Seth: That right there is just a great idea. I never would have thought of that. But if you want to get somewhere fast, that sounds like the way to do it. What towns or areas were these units in? Like, is it a touristy spot or like, did your tenants end up being like business renters or?

Kay: So what I found what works, and this is primarily because of the operational side of cleaning, which is a heavy lift in the short term rental business, if anybody knows about it, having cleaners spread all over the city is really hard because sometimes we could have on a Monday, 22 turnovers going on at one time.

It really helps if they're clustered in kind of the similar and same areas. So we focus Metro. Busy areas of town in Georgia and Charlotte. So that really worked. And it's really nice because when you're not in a vacation area, it's less seasonality.

And if you're in a metro city that's growing, I would say half was maybe short-term rentals. A larger portion was corporate housing for employees. Summertime, parents would pay for their kids to do internships. So three months at a time being paid up.

People waiting for their houses to get done being built, right? Or insurance claims were a big one too, which we love because the insurance company would just pay the whole thing and write the check. So different scenarios, not just vacation rentals.

Seth: I think it's actually pretty wise to be in a metro area because it does protect you from having that dead time you would normally have. Maybe you did it at a ski resort or somewhere very vacation-y. I've thought about this Airbnb thing in the past, just a short-term rental.

And the thing that always scares me away is just the cleaning stuff. When tenants turn over and I would have to hire some third-party management company and they're super expensive and who knows if they do a good job and all this stuff. It's just a lot to think about.

When I think about managing a hundred of those things, it sounds like pure operational chaos. I mean, yeah. Was it just like a daily nightmare or like, how did you manage all that?

Kay: I was so excited as an entrepreneur, when you finally have success, if a client called me and they wanted better pillows, I'm like, I'm on the way. At first, I did every single thing myself, everything. And I think that was important because my team saw that I wasn't too good to go and go change the vay in a unit or go swap the sheets out or do the laundry.

They knew that I did that before for my business. And I knew what good looked like. I knew how to properly create a QC checklist and make sure that if dust could kind of happen, lights could go out, things like that. So we created these processes that really, really worked for us.

I think we were very, very efficient on the turnover side of it. And it wasn't like that from day one, it was managing vendors, which was hell. And so we made that decision to say, we're going to bring this in-house. And that was the thing that made everything more controllable for us.

And if something did not work, we could pivot really quickly. Having that control really helped, but it was a operational, I don't want to curse, but it was just a lot. It was a lot, but it was exciting at the same time because I was building something.

I was challenged where I had to create efficiency and put processes in play and find systems and integrate them, all the things. It was very exciting and it was very profitable. But at a certain point, I think in entrepreneurship, after you kind of like figure certain foundational things out, you start to look at like, what do I want my life to look like? Right.

And it wasn't carrying two phones and not being able to get through like a dinner with friends. Like that was my life. Even though I had a pretty big team. Everything trickles up to you at the end of the day. And so you're dealing with things on weekends, on holidays, especially because it's hospitality at the end of the day.

So when you want to relax with your family, you don't get to do that because this is the busiest time for you, when people are coming in.

Seth: So are you still in that business in any way?

Kay: I'm not in it. I sold my portion to a friend that was an employee in the business. So she operates that. And every day, like two times a week, she's like, the door is still open. You want to come back in?

She makes these jokes after she tells me like, this client actually had me door dash some ice. And they said, why are you door dashing the ice? Can you please add ketchup and barbecue sauce? And so she tells me all these funny stories that always happen. And then she always ends up like, you sure you don't want to come back in? You know, the door is always open.

Yeah. I still love it. I will say that. And it is profitable. I think what I have learned throughout that time that it will be more profitable and it'll make more sense if I own the buildings. That's a big jump from renting from these huge buildings to owning them.

So I do see myself eventually getting back into it because I have a love for it and I already have the experience, but just figuring out the ownership side of it and how to make that work in a metro City.

Seth: Yeah. The ownership thing is interesting because it certainly gives you a lot more power and control and you keep a lot more of the money at the end of the day. But like there's downsides to it too. I remember when I was in banking, when I first got into it many years ago, my assumption is it's always better to own.

But I eventually realized like depending on the business and what stage it's at, like there's actually many, many times where it makes more sense to not own the thing because you don't want to necessarily commit to it long-term and get all like tied up with it. And then your business outgrows it. Now you've got this business you can't use anymore, you know? So there's different advantages to ownership versus just renting the thing.

Kay: A million percent. I think about it all the time. I live in a high rise building. And when I see all the, you know, refreshing they have to do to keep it up to par, I'm like, I couldn't imagine the cost of that, you know? So I definitely wouldn't be in some huge building. It would be more like a boutique style property, I think I would do. I don't want to do it too big.

Seth: Yeah. I think that with hotels, every time I'm in one, I think it's like every eight years or something like that. You know, the recommended timeline is to like redo everything in eight years. It's like, oh my word, like the cost and just the annoyance of it. Like you have to shut down a whole floor just to make it look fresh. You're kind of reminding me of maybe like, don't get back into it.

Kay: Yeah, maybe, maybe not. I don't know. We'll see.

Seth: So on that note, when did you discover land investing and get into it?

Kay: I was at like a local real estate meetup and there was this developer who, locally here named KB. Shout out to KB if you're watching this. He's in Charlotte and he is a home builder.

And so he had a course on development and I said, you know, I'm going to take that course. I want to be a developer, right? So I knew I like wanted to do something else, but I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do, like what would fit me. So I took the course and you can never go wrong.

I feel like with education, even if you decide not to pursue what it's teaching you exactly 100%. I don't even think I went through half the course. Once I figured out how builders look at vacant land, once I knew that formula for this local area, I had already bought a piece of land.

And it was on market. It was $70,000 right near city center. So I'm just like, this is great. I'm going to develop it to the course. And then I realized how much my land was really worth to a developer through their eyes because of this course. And the course was, I don't know, $5,000 or something like that.

But that little nugget allowed me to realize the value of what I had. So I had purchased it under value. And then I decided I am just going to sell this if this is true. And so got what my realtor that I used at the time to buy properties and things. He put it on market for me and we had a cash buyer and a few days or like some executive of loads or something like that that was that that kind of like started the wheels turning.

Why would I have built something and had all that holding costs and had all these vendors to manage when I can just do this over and over again? I didn't even realize there was like a world of land flippers out there. So I did that. And then I started like researching.

Seth: That's very interesting. So I think you said you paid 70,000 for this land. So like, what was it actually worth? And why was it worth so much more than what you paid for?

Kay: It was worth double that 140. And it's so like right under that. So I was just like, this is insane. Yeah, I'll take the offer. Like, yes, I'm not going to argue with that.

Seth: Yeah. How did you find this thing? I assume the person you bought it from, they were oblivious as well and didn't have an idea what it was actually worth?

Kay: Yeah, they were. They had a parcel and they had subdivided it and they had a renter on one side and they just didn't need that other piece of land anymore. So they just wanted to sell it. They didn't really realize what they had, to be honest with you.

It was 0.15 acres, very tiny. And I think back at it now from what I know and I chuckle because I remember during due diligence, the agent got a perk test and it was city, sewer and water. And I look back at that and I'm just like.

That's insane. Knowing what I know today, right? No soil testing is needed. So I thought that was interesting. And I thought of it because now I deal with real estate agents all the time to sell our land. And I realized that that same kind of agent that got the soil test on something that had city sewer water, it's not uncommon with agents not truly understanding land.

Seth: That property, when you bought it, what were you planning to do with it and what actually ended up happening with it? Like what was the highest and best use for that parcel?

Kay: I just wanted a project, to be honest with you. And I was excited to learn something new. So I was just like, I think I'm built maybe like a duplex, right? Something like that, that has a rooftop that you could see the city view from because it's so close. And that's what I was thinking.

And I didn't know if I wanted to like just sell it or have it as a whole. I wasn't quite sure. And so when I found out, I can just double my money almost that quickly. I bought this land and sat on it. I didn't mow the grass. I didn't go by it. I didn't touch it.

They ended up getting it and building. They ended up building a home on it, which is really cool. I didn't touch it. I didn't do anything with it.

Seth: Was it surrounded by other residential homes?

Kay: It's in one of those areas that you drive by. You may want to lock your doors because it's a little sketchy, but then there's like a million dollar home right there and a random million dollar home over here. So it's that area that's right outside the city where it's slowly being developed.

Seth: My sister-in-law used to live in Chicago in her neighborhood. I know exactly what you're talking about. It sounds precisely like million dollar homes and yet there's like crime all over the place.

Kay: Oh yeah. I'm just like lock the door. Like when we went to go walk in, I'm like, lock the door, that kind of neighborhood. But it's like these beautiful homes being built up and people are buying them.

Seth: Well, why do you think the person you bought it from was so oblivious? It sounds like this wasn't an obvious thing because they didn't know it and you didn't know it at first either. Makes me wonder, like, how could you specifically go find properties like this that are worth more than they might appear on the surface?

Kay: The owner did not know there was a old energy, Duke Energy is our provider here. There was like these poles behind the property in the back And this easement was so old that they didn't need it or utilize it anymore because they had changed infrastructure in the area. I don't think he understood that or realized it.

I shot like two emails over to the utility company and they're like, we'll come remove those. We don't need that anymore. And I think maybe that had been there so long that he did not realize that with that easement, it did impede on the building envelope, the parcel.

And I think he thought it was just useless, to be honest. And I think finding that little part out, I don't know enough about easements to know about, you know, utility easements expiring. and everything I know about easements is like they are there forever.

Seth: It's like what I know. So I think this was a very unique situation, to be honest. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's interesting. So when I was building my storage facility, we definitely had some easement issues as well. But you'd be surprised what you can figure out or maybe even change just by like asking the question.

And especially with utility companies, sometimes you got to like talk to five different people to finally find the person who can answer your question for you. But Interesting. Just finding something that appears like a deal killer on the surface, but like, no, just push on a little bit and you can totally change everything about the usability and value of the property.

That's a good lesson, though. Just like, I mean, first of all, understand the utility situation. But once you understand it, realize like it could possibly be changed if you're willing to pick up the phone and do a little bit of digging.

Kay: Right. Yeah. And, you know, if you go into a situation like that, not knowing anything about it, it was just visually I saw the pole wasn't being used. And so I reached out and figured that out with like just a couple emails. Very surprised how easy it was, to be honest with you. My realtor did not even know where to start. So kind of like had to figure that out on my own. But yeah, it was surprisingly easy.

And then the city came in and they wanted a piece of it to build like this beautification part. It was just a tiny little strip they wanted. So they like wrote me a check to be able to do that, create this little buffer and add like a trail and things like that. And I was like, sure, that's fine.

Seth: Yeah, that is awesome.

Kay: It was. It was a very cool mistake deal.

Seth: Sounds like a happy accident for sure. Tell me about your land business today. So like what kind of deals do you do? How many deals do you do? Just get into that.

Kay: Yeah, so I am super localized. I only operate in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. I would say 75% North Carolina. I do find it easier to operate using the same vendors, the same title companies, same soil scientists, things like that. So it's kind of made me kind of horn in and kind of stay in one state.

And North Carolina is a big state, so it's a lot of land here. So it's me. I finally made my first hire December 1 of 25. It's a TC that I worked with for over a year. Well, not TC, she's paralegal there, for an investor-friendly title company that does North and South Carolina here locally.

And she called me one day. She's like, Hey, I'm leaving. I'm like, where are you going? Cause I'm following you. The only reason I truly like worked with that company is because like, cause she was so great. She like connected the dots. We created this relationship. I could call her anytime. She would answer questions for me.

She was just efficient, you know, and she handled a lot of value. I noticed I would get an email from two in the morning to make sure like something got closed the next day. Cause she called something. So when she called and told me that she was leaving. And then she said, she's not going anywhere out. She's just going to be home because she needs a reset.

She said she was just drained. She was exhausted when she got home from work. She wasn't a great mom or wife just because of work. And that happens. I think a lot of people can resonate with that. So she finally made a really hard decision to say, I'm leaving. I'm just going to go home and I'm just going to reset. And so she did that.

And I nudged her a little bit like, I need help. And I would always tell her that when we were on the phone, we were working on deals. And she worked at the closing attorney's office. And she was like, actually, can I work from home? I'm like, absolutely. You can come into the office whenever you want. And she was like, yeah, okay. And that's kind of how we started.

She's on the team, which it just helps tremendously. Then it's me. And then I have a physical office location. It's kind of like a WeWork building. And I did private leases on four of the offices there. Two of them are primarily used for mail production because I do mail in-house as my marketing channel.

We are bringing disposition in-house this year. So instead of using different agents for different deals in different areas, we are bringing that internal because I found a lot of time where I'm holding hands and managing agents. I'm doing a lot of the work. And so it kind of like makes me feel away on the HUD when I see that they're getting this commission. I did all the work.

Seth: So, yeah, we're bringing that in house and we're also going to offer that listing service to other land investors in the space. So we have five offices. Yeah. Wow, man. I might have missed what you were saying about bringing the agent thing in house. So are you saying you have an agent that is on your team?

Kay: I'm sorry. I'm an agent.

Seth: You're an agent. I'm sorry. Yes. Yes. Is that kind of like your main role in the company right now is the selling disposition side or is that just kind of another thing on your to-do list is being the agent that sells the stuff?

Kay: When I first got into the business, I was like, okay, I'm going to do acquisitions and dispositions. Right. but I quickly realized that's hard to do when you're learning a new industry to tackle both sides of the business I did sell two of my properties myself and it was great but it was also answering the phone putting the sign out there all those things trying to do that and learn a new industry and figure out your systems and figure out marketing that was a heavy lift at that time but now fast forward a year later.

It's more of a heavy lift to manage 10 different agents than just to bring it in-house, to be completely honest with you. And so because of that effort, because of the time, like with agents, to get them to change the price on something or to fix something in the listing, it would take multiple touches of communication and to follow up to make sure it got done.

That times 10, your week becomes managing agents, right? Because DISPO is where we get our money. That's when our wires hit. So it's very important. It's just as important as acquisitions. And so I need more control over that. I want more control of that in the business.

And one thing about when you list yourself or use a flat fee MLS, if anyone does, you do get that in buyer communication, which gives you a lot of information, to be honest with you. You end up talking to builders, you end up talking to representatives from big builder companies that are looking for land, and you get clients that potentially can be repeat clients for you that they just buy land.

And that's the really positive side of it. There is work, obviously, but I think the positive side is kind of creating those end buyer connections where eventually I want to be able to acquire and know exactly who my end buyer is because I'm super localized.

And to be able to do that, I think having that direct feedback and direct connection with the market and the end users is important.

Seth: So are you also handling all the acquisition stuff too?

Kay: I am handling all the acquisition stuff.

Seth: How many hours a week do you have to work?

Kay: I would say I do like 10 hour days. Monday through Friday, if I decide to work on the weekend, it will be more, let me go drive up to this property and actually walk in and take a look kind of thing, which I enjoy doing, to be honest with you. I enjoy this business. So it doesn't necessarily feel like I'm working 10 hours a day.

Seth: I totally get that. It's almost kind of like play in some way.

Kay: Yeah, it really is. It's just like, oh, I learned something new or like I have a new partnership with this builder or I figured out how to do that subdivide, you know, whatever it is. I really enjoy it. It can be overwhelming, obviously, right? But I think I enjoy it more.

Seth: So like, if you could only do one task in your business, what would that be? Or like, what do you enjoy the most? Or what do you find the most difficult to outsource?

Kay: I enjoy marketing. Being in the short-term rental business, I picked up that skill set because I'm not going to say it was saturated with short-term rentals, but it was saturated. And just like land or wholesaling, the barrier to entry is low if you have some cash, right? You have to figure out a way to stand out.

You have to figure out how to operate in a way that like it screams that you have a brand, that you're just not a fly-by-night company. SEO was super important with short-term rentals. You want to show up in the algorithm. You want to make sure that people understand like your product is different from the hundreds of other products right there on the same screen with them.

You have to be very intentional with that. I felt like I learned a lot of marketing skill sets over there, and I was able to bring them into the land business. And so it's the marketing side of it.

Seth: Yeah, marketing is a pretty umbrella term. I mean, marketing is kind of like... I don't want to say everything, but it's a lot of it. I'm both the buy and the sell side. Do you enjoy the marketing on the buy side more or the sell side? Or what specific aspects of marketing do you feel like you really shine at?

Kay: You're right. It's a huge umbrella. I don't necessarily love talking to people on the phone. I do it and I'm good at it. It does drain me. I will say that. The marketing side, I do like the creative part because I think marketing is truly just really, really good at communicating.

It is making it so what you are bringing to market, people clearly understand very quickly. And it's very easy to understand. The better you can do that, the more effective your marketing can become, right? And so I enjoy the creative part of the mail design. I enjoy the creative part of the Dispo side also.

And figuring out how to dispo land really fast, how to make the buyer on the inside, not just look at it as like this wooded lot, but help them understand the potential of the parcel. And I think marketing does that, whether it's 3D renderings, having the soil test done already, having the soil already perked and you know it can support a three bedroom or a four bedroom, kind of like removing those question marks for end user and making it very simple for them to make a decision. I enjoy both sides of the acquisition and disposition side, of marketing.

Seth: That whole thing about getting a little exhausted talking to sellers. Have you thought about doing anything like the Stride voice AI agent that'll kind of pick up calls and talk to the person and gather the information for you?

Kay: Yeah. I just, I need Stride to get reference code because I use it heavily.

Seth: You can totally do that. Yeah.

Kay: I did get an answering service call porter when I first started in the business. The problem with that is even if they said they want to sell, it was really hard to get them back on the phone. So we went to live answering and I noticed with live answering, it was like a one, two call close, literally.

First of all, they're very happy and surprised that they're talking to the person who sent them the letter and they're just like, oh, you answered the phone and you're knowledgeable and you're local. That instant rapport, I just felt like was there in that first phone call.

And it was literally now just holding their hand to get the purchase agreement signed and coming to terms that made sense, you know. but that's really hard to do when you're doing everything else also. So it's like, how do you find a middle ground?

Seth: When you say live answering, does that mean you're live answering it?

Kay: Yeah, yeah, I was at one point and that was a lot, you know, even though it's not like a whole lot of phone calls, when people like get you on the phone, they realize you're the person that like sent them the letter. It's huge. And then they want to be on the phone with you for a good amount of time, which is great. It's great, but it's only so much time in the day.

Seth: So are you not doing that anymore?

Kay: No. At one point, I stopped using Carporter. Then I brought them back when things started getting really busy. And I spoke with them. I said, hey... Our theme is like we're 100% women-owned and operated business. And that is on our marketing material. When people call in, they can't have a gentleman answering the phone.

And so I let Call Porter know that. So they did some like custom routing for me. So the calls only hit the women in the call center to answer the phone. I kind of explained to them, I need when my teller is the call to feel like this is someone literally at the front desk of my business. Like they are local. I need that local feel. I don't want to feel like a call center.

So when they pick up, I want them to say, hey, thanks for calling. This is Kay's front desk. How can I help you? So we went over that and I can't hear the calls, to be honest with you. So I don't know how they're going, but it's nice because it's integrated with Pebble. It's my CRM.

And so like it first rings to me because I use open phone. So it rings to me for the first 30 seconds. If I'm available or now Rita, who is my TC, she wants to like try to answer and figure out things and kind of see if that works for her. So she will answer or I will answer. But if no one answers, it will go to call Porter Center and they will ask them the few questions and then we will call them back.

Seth: I'm curious, being a woman owned business, it sounds like you kind of market yourself that way. Does that move the needle? Like, do people care about that? Like, is that something that resonates well with women, but men don't seem to care about it? Or I'm just curious if there's any advantages to that, because that's not something most land investors I know can do because you're not women.

Kay: Yeah, I know. It moves in the, you know, more than I thought it would, to be completely honest with you.

Seth: With men and women or just the women?

Kay: I think both. I think gender and race, to be honest with you. You don't see a picture of me on many... Letters in the industry as a whole. And so I've had people tell me, because you're a woman-owned business, I want to support you. And I think that's amazing. So that's why I want to work with you. I hear that more from women than I do from men.

On the men's side, they usually just won't say anything or they don't say it. But what I get from it, I can resonate with you because you're a woman of color, right? I want to keep the real estate in the Black community is what I've heard. How I got my first deal was because of that. It was a local developer and the guy here, we actually met up for lunch and everything.

And he literally let me name my own price on the property. And I was so green. I should have asked for lower because he was just like, sure. Yeah. And I was like, that was too fast. I should ask for a lower price. But yeah, I think it creates kind of this instant rapport when someone sees you and it's something they can resonate with.

Rather it's another woman in the industry or it is someone that looks like maybe from where your community is from, I think.

Seth: Yeah. It seems like it would, you know, more often than not be an advantage. Has it ever been a disadvantage you think? Or is it just all upside being a woman of color?

Kay: This guy called me one time and I answered and he asked me what was my race over the phone. And I was very cautious to answer him because I think a week before some guy was on the phone and he was telling me that he thinks all these Asians are coming and people from China are coming and buying up our land, right?

And I don't think he knew I'm half Asian. And so when the guy called and asked me, I was very nervous to answer. I didn't know what was coming after that. But he thought I looked like his niece. And he went into this whole conversation. It was a 45 minute conversation with this guy. So it wasn't a bad thing.

But I'm pretty sure I get people that rip up my letter, throw it away. Or I got an email one time from a guy because we do range letters. And he said, maybe if you had some men in your business, you wouldn't make stupid pricing mistakes because our land is worth all this money. And it wasn't. It wasn't. I get more of the positive, to be honest with you, than the negative side of it that I experience or that comes to me and I notice it.

Seth: Yeah. Do you ever put your picture, anything, anywhere for any reason?

Kay: All the letters have my picture. Yes, absolutely. Business cards, everything. Someone sees your logo, it's a logo, but someone sees you and it's like really you. There's just like that human connection that happens.

Seth: That's awesome. I don't get to talk to a lot of women in the business, but even women of color. I mean, that makes you very unique. You're positioned in a way that not many others are. When I go to LAN conferences and things, mostly men, and there's a few women there and very few, if any, women of color.

I think it is something that allows you to stand out because a lot of people do reach out to me and ask me for advice or where I think about something and race does come up and it's like, should I put my picture on here? Should I not? And I think it's whatever you're comfortable with, I think. But I think the more genuine you can be.

Kay: With your business and it reflect who you are, I think the more successful you're going to be because it instantly just makes you unique, right? Because no one can be you.

Seth: Does it ever like feel weird or awkward for you when you walk into a room and you see that like, most people do not look like me? Are you kind of just used to that? Like, yeah, it's fine. Especially at land events when like, that's really true. You are kind of in the minority that way. Are you comfortable with that or does it ever feel weird?

Kay: No, I'm comfortable with it. I think even in corporate and project management is IT, Like there wasn't, you know, a lot of people that look like me either. I think I'm kind of used to that. And, you know, people, they do underestimate you because you are a woman.

And just because I think there's not a lot of reference points in the industry of like people being successful that maybe look like me. So I don't think them underestimating is like a personal thing. I think it's like we don't see a lot of her in the industry. So like there's no way she's really good at this. And so the women that I do meet in this industry...

They're incredible. Yeah. And I wish more would join.

Seth: I totally believe that. I think it was the book, The Millionaire Next Door. I thought I remembered something in there about how millionaires who have daughters, they will go to great lengths to make sure they are taken care of more so than their sons, because they know that their sons are going to kind of have it easier in the business world to some extent.

And I think there is a subset of people out there that are men, but like they have daughters or wives and they see what they go through in the business place, how they're underestimated and that kind of thing. So like they almost have a leaning towards working with a woman rather than a man, especially if that woman portrays competence and is very obviously good at what they do. It's a very quick sell. That's where some do.

Kay: Yeah. That has helped me in this business, to be honest with you, excel in sales.

Seth: It's definitely a good thing.

Kay: It's so funny because I remember me and my brother, He got married. And so my gift was like, we're going to go to Mexico. I'm going to pay for it. So his wife went to Mexico and the men there addressed my brother all the time. They did not address me and my sister-in-law. It didn't matter who was paying. They addressed him only. It was the craziest thing.

And even when I go to land conferences today, my best friend is a man. He's tall. He's handsome. People address him first and people start talking business with him first, not knowing he knows nothing about land like he's i'm dragging him along with me right because you know it is so funny that they just instantly assume this is the guy that runs the business he's not even in land you know it's interesting it's interesting

Seth: Yeah but i think women can use it to their advantage to be honest with you yeah i was wondering like how many assumptions should we make in life because like some assumptions are pretty safe or maybe even smart but something like that like.

Nine times out of 10, if I'm at a land event and I see a man and a woman, whether they're married or in some relationship, it probably is the guy who dragged his significant other there. But in your case, clearly not. Think to that myself, like, would I have made that mistake? I don't know. Maybe I would have. I hope not.

Kay: I think I may have probably made that mistake, too. And, you know, I think it's what we see on a normal basis, kind of our upbringing, our environment. Yeah, I think I would have made it, too. Sometimes.

Seth: Well, hey, appreciate being honest about that. Yeah. Yeah. I am curious between the land business and the Airbnb business. So which one is officially more profitable? It sounds like land is more fun. Maybe I'm assuming too much about that, but does land make more money than the Airbnb business did?

Kay: Yeah, both are fun. We could have had a reality TV show with short-term rentals because sometimes people thought they were going to meet me. And so we had a concierge person that would meet them at certain buildings that were very high-end. So they wouldn't be like, they're in a suitcase looking crazy.

And so they thought they were going to meet me. And so that was a little weird sometimes. And they're like, no, okay, it's not greeting you at 11 PM to walk you into your property. She's not doing that. We've had a federal investigation. The authorities will call us and say, hey.

Just to let you know, we've been watching this person. They are in your property. We are going to have to raid it. We walked in and found firearms under the couch, like really big firearms. We had a homeless guy break into our property like a couple times. And so we have local security that I know personally that we will call to like go handle situations.

Like it was definitely a lot of interesting stories in that business. And I think land is much more profitable when you're talking about your time and your mental, I think, because you can do this business today, I think, as a solopreneur with the technology like LandPorter and LandInsights and Price.

You can do so much as a solopreneur in this business in life. Make tons of money. So I would say time and effort, taking that into consideration as far as cost, land is more profitable.

Seth: And your team is small, right? You've got one person on your team at this point?

Kay: One person. I do have a male guy, but he's more like part-time, like with the short-term rental business. He worked for me there for five plus years. He did like warehouse, he helped with deployment, setting up properties, moving furniture, all that stuff.

And so he does the mail stuff for me, because there's a lot of physical aspect to it. And so he is part-time, depending on what we're trying to get out, I would say part-time and then full-time TC that I just hired. So yeah.

Seth: And running such a lean business like this, because it sounds like you get a lot done and you work 10 hours a day. So has that been like a strategic decision from day one, or is that like a reaction to what you already lived through with the Airbnb business?

Kay: Definitely a reaction. Yeah, like definitely intentional. When you first have success in business and you're like making all this money, you're hiring all these people. Like there's really no guidebook to it. And if you don't have other entrepreneur friends around you or in your circle that have kind of been there, done that, you're kind of just like learning as you go. You're failing forward, to be honest with you.

And so some of the mistakes that I made was growing so fast, I think, and not recognizing the talent that you have when you are building your initial business and when you make your first, I don't know, million dollars in gross revenue. It's very different when your business scales and you have 20 employees and you're making multiple millions, right?

So I didn't recognize that. Also, how much should your operational cost be, right? Just because you're making this money, do you go buy company vehicles and multiple warehouses and expensive office space? I did those things, right? I did those things. I should have kept operational costs lower. And so going into this business, learning those things that I learned from that business, it was incredible.

I am coming into this business and I am not scaling really fast. That's just not the goal because I just came from like chaos every day. And I was living in it and it was normal for me. Like it was normal to have like my phone always got off. No, like I don't want that. I want a little bit of calm.

And that made me choose now as well because I didn't want to manage a team. I didn't want to have cold callers. You know, I didn't want all that. So I was just like, I'm just going to see how much I can do on my own. And I need to learn all the things anyway. so let me just do it on my own and figure out like what can I get done and then bring in as I need and not over hire and just keep a really tight control over that so yeah it was intentional

Seth: I have many friends in the land business that either currently have big teams or used to have big teams and not surprisingly their advice is I was like hire people grow your team all this stuff but like hiring good people is a whole skill set in itself. And then managing good people is like another skill set. Do you feel like you're good at those things with your background?

Kay: I've been told I am. I don't know if I have enough experience to say like I'm good at them. I think I connect with people that I hire and I feel like I'm pouring a lot of me into them. My TC, like I expect her to be in my life. For the rest of her life. She doesn't know anything about land, but she does know the closing side of it. She knows about titles.

She knows all these amazing things that the first 30 days she was in, she got two deals unstuck. It was just like title stuff that she just knew. And she's a notary. She's local. She went and signed with a seller and notarized the paperwork for closing that I had been sitting for months. So the value that she brought, I appreciated so much.

And as she comes into this, I'm like, if you're willing to learn, I want to teach you everything about land while you work with me. Because I think it's to both of our benefit. So she's becoming licensed so she can start taking on listings. And I'm kind of teaching her how to do underwriting and teaching her how to do due diligence. And she's really excited about it.

And I love that because when you're working with someone that wants to grow, I think they just show up better because they're interested in learning and wanting to grow individually than someone that you hire, they just want to please you maybe, right? So anything you say they're going to do and everything like that, which is great.

Well, like you have someone that actually wants to learn and grow. I think that's amazing. I think I'm okay at it. I think I can get better at it. But like you said, I think it is a whole skillset. And I think people coming into this business, they hire, hire, hire.

And if you have never ran a business before, there's so many things you have to learn about yourself and about just business basics before you could say, okay, I'm going to hire and manage someone to these expectations. That is, like you said, a whole nother skill set that you may not have yet.

I think a lot of courses teach people to hire things out. And I know people won't agree with me on this, but I think your first year, you just need to be in it yourself and you just need to do everything so you can learn what everything looks like. That's my opinion.

Seth: Yeah. Well, I'm more like you. I have hired several people in the past, but I've learned to be slower to that and, I don't think I'm that good at it, to be honest. It's not that I can't do it, but like I don't enjoy the work of finding people and then managing them.

Kay: I don't enjoy it either, Seth.

Seth: It helps if they're like a genius. That definitely helps. But even then, it's like the relationship maintenance it takes to do it well. It's just, I don't know. It's this weird mental block I can't figure out.

Kay: So I don't like managing people. That is one thing I did learn about myself. But I do like, I guess, the end result when someone says, like, you've changed my life or you open my eyes to something new or I thought all I could be was this and you showed me a different way. Like, that is so satisfying to me to see someone's growth and be a part of it.

Seth: I don't know if that's different from managing. I don't like the management part. I don't enjoy that whatsoever. But I do like helping someone grow.

Kay: Yeah. The people I know with big teams, it seems like they kind of do enjoy it. They're totally happy getting on calls that last hours and stuff. Man, it's no wonder you have a big team because you like that. If I don't like that, it's no wonder I have a small team.

Seth: Yeah. But it's figuring that out, right? It's figuring that out about yourself, I think.

Kay: So if you could hire the perfect person right now, kind of like your transaction coordinator, but they were genius at something else, what would be the first tasks they would take off your plate? Like who would you hire and what for?

Seth: This year, I would like to hire two hires, and they would be disposition manager because that's going to be a business end zone to be able to take something once it clears title, once we purchase it, and then ensure that it gets the most eyeballs possible.

Kay: And we're creating a system right now to ensure that we can do that efficiently from the intake process to the due diligence process to making sure it's in multiple MLSs, all the MLSs in North Carolina. Just figuring everything out with that. I would love someone that's really, really smart. They would have to understand land. They would have to understand sales and marketing.

And I would like them to be a self-starter to be honest with you because I don't like managing people I love for people to figure out a problem and bring it to me with like these are my ideas these are my thoughts like, I love that. And so I don't want to have to tell you every step of the way.

My perfect hire would be like a dispo manager who could literally probably run their own agency if they needed to. Like I want them to own that department. That's what I want. And then eventually, and I say this out loud, but I don't even know I would allow myself to do it. But the acquisition manager to really be a hunter, really follow up, look at creative ways to take deals down.

Not like someone that just answers the phone and just pushes something through a queue, right? Someone who kind of strategically thinks about deals and maybe a 35% or 40% of market value price doesn't work. So maybe we do a seller finance deal on it, right? And then we do a subdivide, like someone who can look at deals and structure them properly where they're profitable for us and not just say like, oh no, this doesn't work.

So I would love to bring on a really, really strong acquisition person on the front end. So I think those two.

Seth: That kind of critical thinking, that's hard to find. I'll tell you where you can find a lot of it though, is in the banking industry. Granted, these are people who make plenty of money already, but when I worked with bankers, I was amazed, like commercial bankers specifically, how good they were at like.

Seeing the deal and then understanding like 10 different ways it could be structured to make it work if it doesn't just work right out of the box. So if you're ever looking for good critical thinkers, there's always the banking industry you could look into.

Kay: Banking industry. Where do you think that comes from?

Seth: So most commercial loan officers, the only reason they got to that point is because they started out as a credit analyst, which is not really talking that much to people, just like looking at the numbers and understanding, yep, this doesn't work. Or it could work if this was true, but it's not true. Just making those decisions.

And then once you get to the loan officer point, that's when you still have to understand the numbers, but you're in more of a sales role where like you're trying to make things work. It might not work, but you need to try to figure out a way for it to work because that's how you get paid.

So they're in this position where there's these two opposing forces within them, where on one hand, they want everything to sell. On the other hand, it's like, but most of it can't because it's not going to work. So they just have to be flexible out of necessity because they're not going to make money and keep their job if they're not forced to do that.

So it's kind of a stressful position in some ways. Honestly, they're fighting against a lot. They got this quote of stuff they got to sell, but then all these rules they have to abide by. So it's kind of tough, but that's kind of what gives them a lot of their genius in their critical thinking to figure things out.

Kay: Oh, I love that. Okay. So banking experience, what you explained is what I need. That's exactly what I need.

Seth: Yeah. I think in the residential side, they can work too. But what I'm thinking is specifically commercial. I think with residential mortgages, I could be wrong. Sorry if I'm offending anybody out there, but there is less of that intense mental brain work because that's more of like, your credit score has got to be this, make this income or you're kicked out. It just is what it is.

But with commercial banking, it's like. Yeah, these things are all true, but like this could work too. Or we can just go get a different property. Or if you put this much down, we can have a lower rate. There's a lot more of those mental gymnastics on the commercial side.

Kay: Yeah. Mental gymnastics. I like that term. I feel like when I'm looking at deals, that's exactly what I'm going through. Okay. How can we make this work?

Seth: Yeah. Sophisticated land investor, one that actually works hard to make a deal happen that isn't immediately evident that it could work, they have a lot in common with commercial bankers. I know some land flippers don't do that work at all. They're just like, oh, if it doesn't fit the box, it's out. But people like you actually make stuff work that is not immediately obvious to most people.

Kay: Oh, good to know. So I might have to put that keyword when I'm looking and searching. I'm very scared to hire for that, to be honest with you.

Seth: Another thing you could do, because I know some commercial bankers, they actually work side jobs as headhunters, like trying to find talent for different organizations because they can get paid pretty well doing that, which tells me, hey, if a commercial banker is working a side job, maybe they'd be willing to do a side job for a land investor and do some of that critical thinking.

So, I mean, you could look on LinkedIn or just call a few commercial bankers and have conversations with them and almost offer that up. Maybe some kind of commission basis type thing. Just check out LinkedIn, see who works for a commercial bank and they don't have to leave the job. they could just work for you on the side. I don't know.

Kay: Yeah, absolutely. It can definitely be a part-time thing. I think I would prefer to be part-time to make sure there's a good fit before there's like commitment there. That's such a good idea. So thank you. If I find someone, I'm going to follow up and let you know how that goes.

Seth: I'd love to hear that.

Kay: Absolutely. So before we end this, we got to talk about mail. So mail, if I understand it correctly, is that your only current marketing channel?

Seth: Yes.

Kay: Has it always been the only one you've used or have you ever used anything else?

Seth: Only now, when I first started. I was like trying to figure out like what I want to do. Mail just seemed like it made sense to me. I started with RocketPrint and didn't love the ability to like control the whole process, to be honest with you. Maybe that's like a personal thing of mine, wanting to control everything.

Kay: But as soon as you send it off, if you want to change this later, it's like it's already gone. Right. And it takes a little bit, takes two or three weeks once you send something till mail actually hits. Right. And so that may not seem like a long time in the big scheme of things. Right. That's normal.

But because I'm so local, I do first class mail and I mail something like I have some mail sitting on my counter right now that when I leave and go to the office, I'm going to drop off. That mail today's Tuesday. It'll get there Thursday. So I'm able to reach people quicker and with very unique design.

And so that is a huge value to me. I wish Rocket Print had like a Canva plugin or something. Like if you could just design it and then like hit go print and you could see what it will look like. And using having that control will be like amazing, to be honest with you. But it's like the process of sending them a version of a change and then them sending it back to you.

And then it's not right because they didn't quite get what you were. There's a lot of time going back and forth.

Seth: I know exactly what you're talking about. I don't understand why it needs to work that way with them. Because I know there's other male outfits that are a little bit more expensive. But like you can just do whatever you want every single time.

Kay: Yeah. Right from scratch. And it's a very self-paced process where like, you look at the proof, like it's up to you. If you screw it up, it's on you, that kind of thing. But I know what you mean. But again, Rocket Prince got really cheap prices. And I think that's why a lot of people use them.

They kind of figure out what works and just do it again and again. But like the whole what works thing, that's where you kind of have an interesting thing because at first your results with mail were like kind of average. And then they suddenly weren't. What changed?

Seth: What exactly is the benefit you're harnessing by controlling everything yourself?

Kay: The speed is one thing. And since I answered the phone myself, especially in the beginning, I got really fast feedback. And so with that feedback, I would go and like change my layer design because, say, example, the customer had a lot of questions about how things worked. Oh, maybe I had a roadmap, right? Maybe I should add some timelines to it, make it really easy for them to know what's next.

Because from what I'm hearing is that people are a little bit confused about what happens next. So I would be able to change things really quickly on the fly. And if I found I closed the deal and it was a really great deal and I liked every aspect of it, I'm like, let me go back to that market and let me like hit it again.

And the ability to be able to create on the fly, I think, is one of the benefits. And to hit the market quickly is one of the benefit. I think another benefit is to be able to be as creative as you want with this stuff. right? The thing that you don't think about when you send a CSV file to RocketPrint is.

The paperweight, the envelope, the quality of that envelope. I remember getting return mail from some of my rocket print stuff. And like, you could see through the envelope, like you see everything. And I was just like, does that really affect anything? I don't know. But personally, I'm just like, I'm getting security envelopes.

You know, I don't want people to be able to see what's inside before they open it. And I don't want it to look like bulk mail, right? Rocket print is a mail house. That's what they do. They have to do things in bulk. That's why they can make things very affordable. But with that bulk production becomes very cookie cutter templates, very cookie cutter look to things.

And so that's what I want to stay away from because what 99% of land investors use RocketPrint because they are the least expensive mail. Even though mail is the most extensive marketing channel, it is the least expensive. Those points are of value to me, especially the creative design part.

If it's a holiday time, if I want to add like Happy New Year's, I can do that. Valentine's, I can add something there. If I send these stuff to coastal North Carolina, I can make the outside, inside represent something coastal, right? Something a little bit more local.

Do all those little things matter? I don't know. We could never know that for 100%. But for me, there is a better response, right? And I think it's attributed to those things. And I think it's just the fact of just being different. However that different is, I think that is a lever that goes a long way with everyone looking the same.

Seth: If you could do like five different ways of marketing and if you do them all, you'll kind of just be lackluster at all of them because you're not really being a specialist in any one thing. But if you just choose one and get really good at that, that's when it makes a ton of sense.

The important thing that you're doing is like, you are doing one, and you're actually really trying to drill deep to be very, very good at that one thing. For example, very quickly changing things, updating the template for the time of year and the weight of the paper and all this stuff.

I know plenty of people who do just mail, but they don't do that stuff. Like they do just mail because it's easier. They don't have to think as hard as a result. Like it does kind of not work that well, but if you actually do what you're doing, like that's when it really makes sense. You're kind of extracting that exceptional benefit that most people won't have.

You mentioned the response rate. So like, what is the response rate? Like how many mailers does it take to get a deal the way you do it?

Kay: I'm very cautious with KPIs and numbers because I think people can say, oh, it takes this many letters to get a deal that's stuck in their head, but there's so many other little doors that you have to get through, right? I consider response any kind of touch point, whether it's taking me off the list, whether it's I want to buy now, whatever, we record every single response rate.

And so it's a little higher in January. And obviously we're only 20 days in. And I think it's because I sent mail during the holidays, people are now like responding and everything, but our average is a half a percent. It's very much so like everyone else. But the thing is.

The sellers that call, I think they are framed better. I don't think I'm like super good at sales. Like I'm not going to like try to convince someone if they don't want to do something. That's just not me. I think they're framed well enough where the conversion just becomes higher and we're mailing to things that we actually want to buy in markets that we want to be in.

And so I think that is the biggest difference. I think a lot of people get a half a percent response, right? The question is, once they reach out, is it a market that you want to be in? Do the parcels have the characteristics that you need so it can actually resell? Is the consumer trustworthy of you when they're calling in or do they have doubt? Are you a scam?

So I think having those boxes checked as much as you can before someone calls you in makes it just so much more likely that the conversion is going to happen. It's a lighter lift when those come in.

Seth: Remind me, you said when they call or respond now, they're going to a call center?

Kay: It will ring to me first for 30 seconds. And if no one picks up, like myself or Rita will try to pick up. But if not, it will go straight to call center. And that comes into the CRM and we will reach back out right away as soon as they do.

And what Rita will do is she'll look at it and she will put them on my calendar link, like a 15 minute call. And one thing which is cool, which I started doing in my letters, I have where they can reach out to me and book a call if they wanted to with QR code and calendar link. So like, Hey, You want to get on the phone with me, get on a Zoom call. That's available to them.

Also, if they want to opt out, I make it very easy and make it clear in the marketing. We're not for everyone. We get that. This is who we are. You know, instead of them calling in to do that, people, they actually like scan it and they follow the process and just ask to be moved off the list, which is really great, right?

We track all of that and we just try to make it easy for the end user to communicate with us wherever and however was the most comfortable with them, whether it's to like work with us or to say like, take me off your call list or your mail list. But it's about 15 letters to a deal at this point. And we're trying to get better at that, to be honest with you.

Seth: For every 15 letters, you get a deal? Sorry, 1500.

Kay: Oh my goodness. What are you doing? What are you sending in those letters?

Seth: No, sorry. 1500 letters to a deal.

Kay: I got to hire you for something after this. What is going on? I mean, that's still good though.

Seth: When you were live answering these, just going directly to you versus when you don't pick up the phone and it goes to somebody else, have you tracked it all the difference in the close rate? Like, is it remarkably better when you happen to pick up the phone first?

Kay: I got to do better at tracking all of it.

Seth: Even like just your gut thought?

Kay: If I pull the data, I can see it. But yeah, absolutely. I noticed deals, different phases in the CRM. They're going to sit a little bit longer in that little intake phase when they're going to be bounced around a little bit when someone has to call them back and put them on my calendar and everything.

Whereas when they call in, I talk to them, get everything I need in that first phone call. And then it's just emailing them the numbers. And I always present multiple options. I present a quick close cash option, which is obviously less as far as like market values concerned.

I also offer, if it makes sense, a double close. If we're in North Carolina, I can't do that in South Carolina. In South Carolina, we'll offer like a owner finance where we are going to say like, hey, we just need this time. We're going to give you cash at closing and we can do that in two weeks. And then we'll give you the.

People, they're very accepting of it, surprisingly, to be honest with you. When I first did my seller finance deal, I was on the phone a little shocked when the guy said yes. And I was like, oh, this works. So let me get confident in it and let me start getting this tool together and start using it.

Because instead of putting $100,000 down, you can put $20,000 or $10,000 and people don't end up receptive to it. I think that's a really amazing way to make profit when maybe profit isn't instantly realized with deals.

Seth: I mean, when I hear you say that, it's not that surprising to me because I know in the commercial real estate space, it's very common for buyers to ask for seller financing. But the expectation is the answer is probably going to be no, because, you know, they can probably find a buyer who can get bank financing, all that stuff.

But with land, if that seller knows anything about selling land, they probably know financing isn't there for this buyer unless I finance it for him. That's an interesting discovery. When you say that you frame things up better in your direct mail, it's like, what does that mean? Like you just say something that gives them better expectations of what's going to happen when they call?

Are you more communicating what you do and don't want to buy? Or if I wanted to write a better letter that's going to just like start the conversation in a better way, what should I not be saying? Or what should I go out of my way to try to say?

Kay: Yeah. So, and this is all from feedback from the customer. Something that was big and process improvement when I was in corporate was like voice of the customer that leads everything. And so when customers used to call, they would always ask this question of like, where'd you get this range from? Like, where are you getting this range from? Where do I fall in this range?

So we explained in a little disclosure, hey, this is a range for they didn't know if it was real or not is what I captured when I was speaking to them. Because I don't do the contract. I don't send a blind offer with a contract, right? So for me, in my head, I'm like, a range will start a conversation.

Because if someone says no to $50,000, because in their head, their point is $57,000 for whatever reason they're anchored at. Instead of throwing my letter away, that range allows, hey, a conversation can be had here. And so when people are calling in and they're asking about the range, I said, let me put some kind of language in the letter that just lets them know right under the range.

Hey, disclosure, this is bulk pricing, county-wide pricing. When you call in, we will give you a formal offer after we underwrite your particular parcel because every parcel is different. It's unique. So we say that, we put a timeline there. Once you call in, if you want to get a formal offer, it'll be one to three business days. Usually we try to do better than that.

And here are the different ways to reach us. You want to go on my website and just fill out because you don't want to talk to anybody because you're that kind of personality because that's kind of how I am with stuff. Or do you want to call in? Or do you want to text in? or do you want to email me? Here's all the ways to contact us, right?

So I think framing in that way, letting them know if we decide to work together, these are the next steps. And this is kind of roughly the timeline you're looking at and that we are local. And that if you do Google us or Google our return address, we are actually a business that's Google verified that has many reviews from people that we worked with.

So that legitimacy is there. So that trust barrier is not as high with that mistrust barrier. And then it is like, okay, this is a range. She understands we may question this, but it answers my question right here of like, this is bulk pricing. We need to call in. And once we understand your property, underwrite it, you'll get a formal offer.

Seth: Do you use video at all in your business? Like people can scan a QR code and see a video of you introducing yourself or anything like that?

Kay: No, I've heard of that before, but I don't love how I sound on video. So I think that has stopped me personally from adding it.

Seth: First of all, I think that's crazy. You sound awesome and you present yourself very, very well. The reason I bring this up is because a lot of times when you get an email or something or a letter from somebody, like it's just kind of words on a screen, doesn't really mean much when you can actually like connect with that person and understand, oh, okay, that's who they are.

It's a really big reason why I think a lot of times when you hire somebody from the Philippines or anywhere in the world, like part of that process is getting a recorded short video from that person. Just like talking, just saying who they are. It could be 30 seconds. That's fine.

You present yourself very well. You have very professional demeanor and appearance, but you're not like stuffy or like uptight. Like you're very real and relatable. I think that would probably work wonders for you, especially being a woman of color. I mean, I think if that has worked to your advantage, that would be like... A superpower, I think, especially if they then called you and you answered, holy cow.

I mean, that would really go a long way. So I'm doing that. Yeah, I'm going to do that. Thank you for those kind words. I'm going to do it on tester campaign. And I'll email you the results. If it doesn't go well, it's not my fault. I'm sorry.

Kay: I'm like, Seth, I think that's an amazing idea. And I know what you mean, like a still picture of someone is one thing, but to really understand like, oh, they're not stuffy, right or like they're a person those little things like when you know like you meet someone you're like I like them I can't really put my finger on it or like I really like that person that may be my new best friend and you can't really like pinpoint why those things are in a video

Seth: Yeah you know it's funny because I had seen your name on our forum and you know Facebook group and that kind of thing but it wasn't until you showed up to our office hours thing that I did a couple months ago that I actually like heard you talk like in person and it helped a lot like I felt like I understood you much better very quickly. It goes miles further than just seeing a picture of somebody or seeing something they wrote.

Kay: Yeah, I am going to try that. I'm excited about that.

Seth: Sure. If somebody were to try to like copy your exact business model tomorrow, what do you think is the part that looks easy on paper, but would probably break first?

Kay: Yeah. So I've shared my template and discord and the discord that I'm in. And then I started getting letters in the mail that looked like my letter because I own land, Right. I thought that was interesting.

Seth: Was that annoying to you?

Kay: A little bit annoying, a little bit flattering, to be honest with you. But I immediately saw where I think it breaks. And it was from three different land investors. They all use the same virtual address. I don't think that's great. It's those little details. I think it's very easy to copy someone from what you see.

But like, I think that, everything it took in the background to get there is what people don't see. And the little change that's going to happen two weeks from now on the letter or six weeks from now, whatever, the continuous change in the marketing or how you do things in your business.

I think the little things like being Google verified and being legit when someone searches for you, because they will, they're going to search for who you are because they don't know who you are. I do. When I get letters, like informed delivery thing and it scans and I'm like, who's this? And I'll see, you know, who they are.

I think even with our phones, sometimes like I want to answer if I'm not unsure, they're not saved. I'm going to like Google who the number is.

Seth: Totally. I've done that too.

Kay: Yeah. So I think it's like human nature. It's okay to copy, like be inspired, copy. Like if your letter is a letter from a course and it's like black and white, you've got a squint to read in. It's like, what is that? Yeah. Copy my letter. Absolutely. Be inspired. Put your own twist on it.

But like, make sure it passes sniff test with your sellers, to be honest with you, because that's like the most important thing. And then the market selection is really, really important to anybody could, like you said, copy a letter and they're not going to get the exact same results. I think it's those other things that are not so easy to copy that will fall short.

Seth: Yeah. Copying stuff is not hard to do, but caring, live answering phone calls, like immediately making changes based on feedback, working 10 hour days. This is stuff most people will not do. Not even one of those things, let alone all of them. I think most people are lazy and that's why they copy stuff in the first place. So I think it would fall apart pretty darn quick.

It'll probably work to the point that it worked for you, but like you actually did heavy lifting to make it work all the way. And that's where a lot of people just aren't gonna keep up.

Kay: Yeah, sometimes in Discord, when I learn something, I do like to share it with other people because I just remember being stuck when I was new. I remember being like, oh my God, What do I do? And so if I learn something in our credit template, I do share it. And I do get people like, why are you sharing this? You know what I'm saying? Like, don't share it with people. And I have to tell them like.

People are lazy. To be honest, you can literally give them a step-by-step blueprint printed out with pictures and a video. We're talking about it and like, they won't do it. They will not consistently put the work in to do it. Maybe it was framed of why they entered the business or how they entered the business that maybe it's easy or maybe it's quick. And it's like, it's not, it's not.

And I didn't join when it was super, super easy that I hear about, you know, I joined when it was not like 2026, I joined middle of 24.

Seth: So it wasn't like the super easy send a thousand dollars, get five deals type of environment. I'm kind of theorizing here, but that may have helped you. The fact that like from the very beginning, it wasn't super easy because I think the people that joined when it was super easy, that's the biggest representation of people who have gotten out of this business because it kind of established in their mind, it's supposed to work this way.

I'm supposed to be able to push these buttons and this result happens. And when it gets harder, I totally get why they drop out. I think it'd be psychologically hard for anybody when like you experienced a time when it was easy. So having never had that easiness probably just made you a lot stronger from the very get-go. Like, this is just how it is. I got to figure it out or get out of this business.

Kay: Absolutely. I agree. Kind of like the person that comes in, they're lucky and they get like that huge deal really quickly. So that's the expectation for the business. In the next three or four months, they get nothing.

Seth: Yeah. I think it may do more harm than good. Kind of getting the easy lever when you first start in the business. Yeah.

Well, okay. Just two questions left. This has been awesome. Thanks so much for doing this. I know we're going a little bit long here, but you've built two very different real estate businesses now. Which one do you think taught you more about yourself and why?

Kay: I would have to say the first one only because I have time there, right? There's a lot of time there so I can compare it to land. I've only been in for a short amount of time and everything that I learned from there, all the good and all the bad. I feel like I had to go through it for this to be successful, if that makes sense.

Seth: Do you think land is easier relative to the short-term rental business?

Kay: It's more nuanced. Land, every deal is different. You're learning something all the time. I don't know if I would say one is harder than the other. I think a couple of skillsets help them become easier equally. Marketing and process. I think are two things that can take someone who maybe is new and never been in either one and make it be successful, to be honest with you. And patience.

Seth: And patience. Yeah. Marketing process and patience. Those are three umbrella words that cover pretty much everything.

Kay: Yeah, everything.

Seth: Just being very general here. You know, I'm going to remove patience. I'm going to say resilience. Being knocked down is part of the process. But if you don't know that, it's really hard to get back up. But if you know, like, this is just part of the journey, getting kicked in the teeth, deals not going through, stuff like that. It's just part of it.

When I was talking to Jeremy Brown in episode 255, we were talking about challenges and that kind of thing. And I think the truth is, when you get kicked in the teeth and knocked down, like, that is why you will succeed. It's not just like a pointless, fruitless difficulty in life. Like, that is the whole reason why you're gonna make it in life.

If you can make it past that, it'll make you so much better. A lot of people don't see that. They just see it as like a roadblock. Like, ah, I can't do it. I'm done. It's like, no, that's there for a reason. Like that's part of what makes anything great is because things are hard.

Kay: Yeah. A thousand percent. Like on the other side of this, because most people quit, I'm going to have this advantage, right? I'm going to have this thicker skin. And I had to go through that with short-term rentals. Overspending, that hurt. You feel like the walls are closing in and you have this huge payroll and you decided to sign these crazy leases on this office space that you didn't need.

That is a lesson that no course, is going to teach you. You're not going to feel that pain anywhere else, but going through it, to be honest with you. So yeah, I agree. I definitely agree, Seth.

Seth: So last question here. If you had to choose between owning a hundred Airbnbs again, or doing 10 really clean land deals a year, which one would you pick?

Kay: Oh, can you guess? Land deals. I was waiting on a difficult question. So you're known for like the really, really good question. That was maybe the dumbest question I've asked so far. I'm like, I'm waiting. Okay. A thousand percent. They don't even have to be clean. They could be like 10 with a little bit of hair on them. I'm okay with that. I would do land deals all day long.

Seth: Yeah. Gotcha. So like, what is a normal size of your land deal? Like how big are these things?

Kay: Yeah. So came into it and I like took a few educational programs and I realized some were made for like the smaller stuff, like the desert squares, the seller finance. And I was like, that's not something that I want to do because essentially I had to replace my income.

And with the short term rentals, it was a lot of income to replace. So I'm just like, I can't start off with these little tiny deals. It's mid market stuff. So we're buying anything that has a market value of $50,000 or more. The average market value is between $50,000 and maybe $150,000, $200,000.

The biggest deal I've done today on the sales side was about half a million dollars. So I'm not in the millions, anything like that. We kind of do like that in mid-market play. And I chose that because it's really hard for it to make sense to the agents when you acquire or something like that. And you want to put on the MLS. That's what I was thinking about when I did that. But yeah, that made marketeer.

Seth: Although since you are the agent now, does that still matter anymore?

Kay: Honestly, it's changed my perspective because now instead of going through all the loops of bringing another party and convincing them, now it's just a few clicks. And it's like, why not make a buy for 10, sell for 30? Why not do that when you're the source to be able to get that out and sell it and make that spread? Because that spread now makes sense where it didn't make sense. A thousand percent, yeah.

Seth: Do you think that'll make you intentionally go after smaller stuff? Or would you rather go after bigger stuff because of the reasons everybody else wants to? Because it's a higher margin.

Kay: My mark was 50,000 or more. I think I will be okay going to 30, 35 or more now that it's not such a hurdle to involve an agent. And the profit stays a little bit more in-house because the commission stays in-house, which is great.

So I do notice that with larger deals, they are more sophisticated it and they're easier to work with the sellers, to be honest with you, which I do love. And with smaller deals, depending on who you get, it's a little bit more hand-holding.

But if you have a month with no dispo and that one that you bought for 10 and sell for 30 closes, you're going to be pretty happy with that $20,000. So I wouldn't discount the small stuff. I never wanted to be like, I'm only going to go after six-figure deals.

And I thought that too. Once I got a really big deal, I'm just like, oh, this is great. I want to just do these. But the reality is you will have no money to keep your lights on if you just try to target six-figure deals to be completely honest with you.

Seth: Does anything about those bigger deals scare you? I mean, that's a real thing for me when I think of like oh we're getting into the hundreds of thousands to acquire this thing like it's just a lot of money on the line you know is that part of your thought process or is it more just no we don't want to tie up our money for too long of a time.

Kay: I'll be honest with you at first it did and then once I understood creative finance I don't even care about the price of a property like as long as it be structured in a creative way where it makes sense with the least capital out the door as possible, it makes sense.

It's honestly easier with bigger deals because you can buy at 80% of something that's worth 500,000 and still make so much money, right? And have a lot of margin there if you can take it down creatively. And I think that's the key.

Seth: Wow. I mean, is there ever a fear that like, hey, what if I get into this creative finance thing? I put 20% down, but like, I can't sell it. Something goes horribly wrong. Or are you just really confident in your ability to value properties and the demand that that's just never really part of the problem?

Kay: No, that is a scare of mine. Absolutely. And I use financial partners too. Even when I'm using financial partners that come in, it is even more of that due diligence and make sure that's a good deal and make sure you have extension clauses and that the purchase agreement is in your favor for those things.

I think that's something you learn as you go. My first seller finance deal, it was not the best term because I didn't know what I was doing, but luckily it's so quickly, but going forward, it taught me, I don't want to know. I don't want to be paying something monthly if I don't have to.

I don't want to pay interest if I don't have to. And I want to push that balloon payment out as far as I can and have clauses that are in my favor that allow me to extend if I need to. And so I think those are some protective ways.

We never know. We think we've got it dialed. Then there's some deals. I'm like, I got this dialed. Then it's going to sell. And like, it sits, it sits. And it's just like, what didn't I get right? And then some that are just like, it's like a regular deal. And then it just sells super quick.

And it's really hard to pinpoint sometimes like the perfect formula of what make things sell. You know, I think it's timing, sometimes the market, it's a bunch of these little factors that we're kind of just taking our best guess that. So heck, yeah, I am nervous sometimes. It's part of it.

Seth: Kay, it's been amazing talking with you. Great conversation. If people want to reach out to you or connect with you in any way, is there anything you want to throw out there for them?

Kay: Yeah, my email address, this is the email address not to my acquisition land business. It is to the disposition marketing side of it. It's [email protected]. And it's acre, like an acre of land. Link, L-I-N-K, group.com. So [email protected].

Seth: Awesome. and I will include a link to Kay's forum profile on the REtipster forum if anyone wants to check that out and show us for this episode, retipster.com/257. Hey, again, thank you so much. Wish you all the best in your land business and to all the listeners out there, thanks for listening. We will talk to you next time.