Narrator: It's time for a new edition of The Land Show with Dave and Johnny. On the show today with the guys, Ryan Folk with LANDFLIP and LANDTHINK. George Mann, talking deer hunting. Bryan Watts with your Timber Talk segment. Randall Upchurch with your Farmland Report, and of course, the Wild Man himself, Tim Baker, with your wildlife update. So sit on back, relax, and enjoy a new edition of The Land Show with Dave and Johnny.
Dave Milton: Hey, everybody. Welcome to The Land Show with Dave and Johnny. It's a beautiful Saturday, and cool weather. Not too cold. Just right, you know? Just right, Johnny B. You look like you're having a good time this Saturday.
Jonathan Goode: Oh, yeah, man.
Dave Milton: Glad to be with you, JohnnyB. Goode, here. Dave Milton, The Land Show. How you doing, man?Jonathan Goode: I'm good, brother. It's good to be back in studio with you. Our weather has been a rollercoaster this past week, man.
Dave Milton: It has been. It's been up and down and I'm one of those crazy people, I guess this is fat man's revenge time here when my wife's shivering, I'm about three of her, and I like the cool weather. Especially during hunting season because the deer move more.
Jonathan Goode: Yeah. Well, there have been a lot of deer moving. You know, I was just thinking. I need to buy a propane company because this past week, man, I had to have my tank filled. Those folks have got a good gig going on when we've got a cold winter like this, and it is. This cold weather has got the deer up and moving. I'm seeing a ton of pictures of big bucks that are killed across the state, and you had a good hunt this past weekend.
Dave Milton: We did. You know, our camp's on the Chambers-Randolph County line on the Tallapoosa River there, and we do a family hunt on my dad's side of the family. My dad's originally from south ... Macomb, Mississippi, south Mississippi. Had a bunch of my cousins and uncle and a bunch of family from that part of the world came over and we had a big, we did a lot of cooking and a lot of eating and a lot of talking-Jonathan Goode: That's a given.Dave Milton: A lot of football-watching. And we did some hunting, too, and they killed a doe and saw some nice bucks. Just couldn't get a shot, but a lot of deer. I just, you know, I travel all over the state, and I'm just seeing more and more young deer, and I think the recruitment rate was outstanding. You know, you always ... And I don't know why, people have different theories, but just seeing so many young, yearling deer and maybe year-and-a-half-year-old doe, and young doe that the spots just came off. And it's great. The same thing with rabbits and turkey. A lot of times, I can tell how our turkey season's going to be in deer season, and our turkey population's kind of been going down. But it jumped back up this year, so we're very excited about that. Jonathan Goode: Well, your area, man, y'all have got good deer hunting, but the turkeys on your property are exceptional, man. You have a great area for turkey hunting up there.Dave Milton: Yeah, there are six counties in Alabama that actually have a fall turkey season, and we don't really take advantage of it. Maybe we'll do it once or twice, but that's just because we've got enough turkey to be able to justify a fall season. I wish they would go ahead and let you take a few hens, too. So if you're listening, Chuck, may be a good idea.Jonathan Goode: Well, you know, it's so different, because I grew up in Morgan County, which at the time was the only county in the state that did not have a turkey season I never saw a wild turkey in the woods until I went to college, and so it's just, you know, it's totally different when I come to your hunting camp. I love it because there are turkeys everywhere.Dave Milton: Yeah, and the turkeys, and as a boy, we did so much rabbit and squirrel hunting, and the rabbit population, I've noticed, I'm just seeing more rabbits everywhere. And so, you know, folks have got different theories. I think we've had a couple wildlife biologists that just thought it was because of a wet spring and summer, maybe more grasses for the young animals to hide in. I think something's happened to the coyotes in our part of the world. You know, I'm just not hearing as many coyotes at night, and in fact, and, you know, I'd love to get a report from some of the other parts of the state, maybe north Alabama, south Alabama. I'm more in the central part of the state. Are you hearing less coyotes? Or have you heard anything about that? Are you seeing more of a recruitment in fawns and a recruitment in rabbits and turkey like I am in this part of the state? Love to hear a report from some of you all listening, info@thelandshow.com, info@thelandshow.com. Let us know what's going on in your part of the world. Jonathan Goode: Yeah. Hey, well, I started off the season ... You know, we do all these Wild Turkey Federation banquets and all that kind of stuff. We just had our, my first one of the year last night in Greensboro, Wild Turkey Federation banquet. Got to take my daughter over there and enjoy that. So that's fun.Dave Milton: Did you win anything?Jonathan Goode: Not this year, not this year, but, you know, it's that time of the year when all these banquets kick off, and it's enjoyable. And man, speaking of banquets, we had a phenomenal place last week. You put on a great show for our annual Southeastern Land Group kick-off party at Pursell Farms. And thank you for that. So that is a beautiful venue.Dave Milton: I don't know of anywhere else like that in Alabama. I mean, it's over 3,000 acres of Coosa Valley, and beautiful kind of Razorback Ridge, small mountains around. Kind of the last part of the Appalachians where it hits the Coosa Valley there. It's just an outstanding venue. I mean, it's one of the absolute gems in the whole southeastern United States. It's really picking up a lot of steam, I've noticed the last few years, they're having more and more events, people coming from further and further. And it's not just golf, you know. People think of Farm Links, and that's how it got started. The Pursell family's into specialty seed. And what a great family. But now, tell us about the other things you're doing there?Jonathan Goode: Yeah, the Orvis ... The shooting range there. I know several of our guys went early and took advantage of the clay course that they have there, and I think they offer fly fishing there, as well, fly fishing instruction. They do quail hunts. They do the John Deere UTV trails around the place.Dave Milton: Right. On these ridges overlooking the valley, and it's just ... There's so many things to do.Jonathan Goode: We had David Pursell on the show a few months ago when we did an event there, I think in October. Man, it really is ... We get to see pretty places, but Pursell Farms, I think it's a little over 3,000 acres. It is one of the special places in Alabama, for sure. Dave Milton: And the old longhorn cattle when you come in. And the history, and the old buildings they've left up. And they've really held on to their family heritage there, but it made it really a 5-star place. And you know, they rolled out the red carpet. They catered for us. We had almost a hundred people there. We had some great music, and recognized our top producers in our company and guys that hit a high level. Everybody brought their family, and we got together, and just want to recognize those guys now. I'll let you do it.Jonathan Goode: Well, no, we do want to congratulate Randall Upchurch for being the top producer in our company this past year. Austin Ainsworth from north Alabama was second, and then Tim Baker from Decatur, he was third. And then, also, Matt Burnett won a special award.Dave Milton: Oh, yeah. That's a real high honor. We try to recognize the man that went above, or woman, that went above and beyond in the client service arena, which is what it's all about, obeying the golden rule, and you know, really trying to go above and beyond. And Matt Burnett, you know, just did that on several occasions, but I'm talking about way beyond the call of duty, tracking down buyers, and almost like a detective, to make a few deals happen for people. And these weren't big deals. This was because it was the right thing to do, and so we ... That's called our Miolas-Dollar Client Service Award, and we name it after a couple of our, you know, great partners and agents who have passed. Pat Miolas and Mason Dollar who were great men who gave great, outstanding service and paved the way for the rest of us, and it was really, probably our highest honor.Jonathan Goode: Yeah, for sure. And we, you know, congratulations to all the members of the Southeastern Land Group team that made the Champions Award Club, and then the Summit Club. But, you know, just high achievement among our team, so it was a good year. We appreciate all of our clients and customers that give us the opportunity to help you with your land needs and look forward to doing that again this year, and man, we need to jump into the show.Ryan folk with landflip and landthink.comJonathan Goode: We've got a lot lined up for our guests. Right now, we're going to go across the state line over into the Peach State just a little bit. We're going to talk to our good friend, Ryan Folk. Ryan is the founder of LANDFLIP and LANDTHINK.com. Ryan, how are you this morning, buddy? Ryan Folk: I'm great, guys. Good to talk to you. Good to meet up with you today.Dave Milton: Yes, sir.Jonathan Goode: Yeah, well, we appreciate you coming on, and essentially kicking off the new year here. We've always appreciated our relationship with LANDFLIP and LANDTHINK. You guys do a fantastic job over there, and our listeners have become more familiar with you, and one of the things we like about having you on, Ryan, is LANDFLIP helps folks by and sell ... It's a marketplace for people to advertise properties for sale around the country. And coming into this new year, one of the reasons why Dave and I wanted to have you on is just to ask you, what are your thoughts? You get to see land for sale all across the country. What are your thoughts about what the land market is looking like, just big-picture across the United States right now? Ryan Folk: I think I generally see a few different things going on. Certain regions of the country are holding their own, and others, I wouldn't say are doing bad, but may struggle, especially during the winter months, that time of year. Southeast, we did a poll survey not long ago, southeast still tends to rule the day. You've got a great timber market going on here. The Texas, the southwest region tends to be a pretty good market, and then the Midwest being up in the farming, predominantly farming area ... That, and along with the Farm Bill, I think we're seeing ... It depends on who you talk to. Some people, it's just real localized. Some areas are hot. Some areas have cooled off. Northeast tends to be a great end user type of buyer. You get the pretty country up there in the northeast, northwest, a lot of the same, northeast-northwest tend to kind of go hand-in-hand because of the type of the climate and the views and the beauty, the scenery and all of that. More caters toward your end user, typically. So that's what we're seeing generally. You know, really, 30,000-foot view across the United States. Being here in the southeast, we tend to weather the storms pretty well comparative to some of the other regions, but then again, the rule of real estate is local. Even though you may be in those regions, local still rules the day, and it all boils down to that lowest common denominator. Jonathan Goode: Well, it's so funny. So much of what we deal with in my area is hundred to 200 acre hunting properties, and they're reasonably priced, but I was looking around the country last night, and this is one of the things that you get to see with LANDFLIP. The most expensive land listing in America right now is 134 acres in Beverly Hills. It's Beverly Hills Mountain, and it's $1 billion for 134-acre tract. And I just thought, you know, if people would just come to Perry County, Alabama, we could put them on a really good deal. Now, we don't have the Pacific Ocean here, but we do have some pretty views over here, Ryan.Ryan Folk: You could own a very large chunk of Alabama for that.Dave Milton: Yes, sir. You could.Jonathan Goode: I could probably put together a county for you for a billion dollars.Dave Milton: Jonathan's a broker in Mississippi could buy him an even bigger chunk of Mississippi.Jonathan Goode: Yeah, no doubt. But you know, it is so neat. I saw a ranch in Arizona this morning that was 105 sections for sale. You know, which is 640 acres per section, so it is just really different depending on what part of the country you're in, and that is one of the cool things about LANDFLIP, is you can go onto your site there at LANDFLIP.com and check out land from all across the country. Southeastern Land Group, we've been advertising with you, I don't know, for 10 or 11 years, at least, Ryan, I would guess. Ryan Folk: Oh, yeah. Every bit of a decade or more.Jonathan Goode: So you know, Robert King was one of the early adapters there, and so we've enjoyed our relationship, and out of LANDFLIP, LANDTHINK.com came about, and that's a place where you and your group publish articles from land professionals and people that are tied into land from all around the country. And one of the things I love is you do what's called a pulse question every month, and tell us about one of your most recent pulse questions where people get to vote on things that are important to them. Ryan Folk: One of the most recent ones deals with the subsidies for the timber land, here mainly in southeast and out west with the fires that we've had in the past year. But then the question simply was considering the recent natural disasters, do you believe the United States government should subsidize timber owners in times of disaster like they do traditional farmers? And as most people know, this is dating way back to FDR, I believe, where farmers can, when there's a disaster or things like that in our country, the thinking was, you can't afford to have major fluctuations. The government would assist farmers during droughts or natural disasters. Well, we had a rare instance this past year where, I think what was it, Jonathan? A billion dollars worth of timberland just in the state of Florida was wiped out. And so that kind of brought up, and with the Farm Bill and all of that that's been going on over the past year or so, and then negotiating on that. It brought up the question, so is timber land treated like farmland? I mean, you know, it is a crop. People do, it is an investment. It's a crop. It's many things. And so we polled the audience to say, "Hey, what do you think?" Do you think the government should step in? And the results were pretty interesting, in the fact that it was what I would consider a draw. We had 51.8% that said yes, and then the remaining 48.2 said no. In the absence of errors, I would say that's pretty much down the middle. That was interesting. Jonathan Goode: Yeah. That is fascinating, and you know, that's a question that's been going on in our country ... If I remember right, some of the stuff I've read, I think it was in the early 1930s, maybe 1933, that FDR and that Congress put into practice the Agricultural Adjustment Act that helped bring in the Conservation Reserve Program and those sorts of things were born out of that. It was really a national security and a financial concern for farmers to make sure that those farmers were able to produce the crops and that the dollars kept up with their work. And it really, for the first time, it put a floor under farmers. And we sort of see that now. I mean, people are ... I know that our row crop farmers in ag, those who practice husbandry, count on those subsidies. But it is a unique question to think about timber and timber land, and do those sorts of things play into it? Dave Milton: There is private insurance for timber land, but it's so expensive that most people don't get it. It's rare. You know, you could insure your timber, but it's just not feasible. You know, it bites into your returns so much, so it's a big question. Everybody's ... Most of our listeners would say they're capitalistic until they're not.Ryan Folk: And I believe, too, most of those that purchase that insurance are your industrial timber land, your corporations, your big players that can afford that. A lot of your private, you know, your guy that owns a couple hundred acres of timber land, you're right, David. The numbers-Dave Milton: It doesn't work. Yeah.Ryan Folk: It probably doesn't line up too well, so yeah, it's definitely an interesting question. It's valid. Very valid. Yeah, it just goes to line up with our country right now. Being very divided. And I think that, you know, a lot of these polarizing yes-no questions are ... We tend to see. We like to ask them because it's simple. You don't have to sit there and think about it all day, and it solicits more responses, and so usually when we do these, it doesn't sway too far off from being a draw. So yeah, and I think that with timber land being, and especially in this part of the region, you're going to get some pretty opinionated folks on the issue, and really, nobody thinks of it until it actually happens.Dave Milton: Right. Right.Ryan Folk: It's just like oh, jeez-Jonathan Goode: Yeah. Well, nobody's ever accused you of being afraid to stir the pot either, Ryan. You know, I like that you like to bring people to a point of decision, so you're not afraid to do that. And one of the other pulse questions that you had recently pertained to how do people choose real estate brokerage firms, specifically land brokerage firms. What were some of the results from that?Ryan Folk: Yeah, we asked a question, and this one was ... I believe we've done a spin-off of this in the past. But we get input from our customers, our advertisers, our readership, and we want the audience to help formulate these, and not just be all about what we think should be the question of the day or the month. And so one of them, you know, we've got a lot of brokers out there that specialize in the land, and we've got a lot that do some land but really don't specialize in it, and so we thought, "Hey, you know, there's a lot of people out there on the buy side and the sell side that are looking for a firm to represent them in a land transaction." So the question was, what are the three most important factors when selecting a real estate firm to assist you in buying or selling land? Now, when we do these answers, we may not get them all. And not all of them may fit in the perfect box. We realize that we may miss some, and we may add some that might not necessarily be the best, but we try to just, we're just trying to get a gauge, a pulse. We're not trying to get really scientific with this thing, but our top three ... Number one was a firm reputation. That seemed to be, that got 59.2% of the responses. So we let people pick three, and that got 59.2 of the responses. And then, I'll go ahead and mention two and three. Personality of the salesperson is 48.2, and then the sales fee or commission was 45.9.Jonathan Goode: Right.Ryan Folk: So those are, and then we had others. Firm brand recognition, multiple services offered, marketing plan and materials, proximity to the property, and referral or references were also, you know, scattered here and there. But those first three I mentioned were the predominant ones that people answered that was important to them. And so the firm reputation is interesting because you ... People really want to ... You talk about an investment here. Big money. It's typically trading hands, and so people want to work with people to have a good reputation. And then the personality of the salesperson being that, you know, it's the old saying, right? People buy from people.Dave Milton: Right.Ryan Folk: And I think that, this is an emotional transaction. Not all the time, but a good bit of the time, so those were some of the things that we were able to pull out of this. What do you guys think on those responses?Dave Milton: Yeah, absolutely.Jonathan Goode: That coincides a lot with Zig Zigler, one of Dave's favorite sales folks. I mean, people want to do business with people they like and trust, and-Dave Milton: Yeah, people that want to create win-win situations and genuinely want to take care of you, and then I think in just in my career, Ryan, you know, when I first started doing this, it was just a handful of people in the state of Alabama that just sold land because it was ... Land wasn't that expensive. It wasn't really a specialty market. You could make a living off of it. But now, there's probably a few hundred, but what we see more and more is that folks want to do business, you know, I mean ... A land transaction is more like a heart surgery. It's a specialty, and people want a cardiologist, and they want the best cardiologist. And so that's what everybody wants, the best. And so it's our job to provide, to get better and better and better and more and more innovative and continually strive to be the best. So yeah, I think those line right up with the kind of questions that are asked of us, you know, on a regular basis.Jonathan Goode: Well, Ryan, right quick before we go, if people want to find LANDLFLIP and LANDTHINK and get those sorts of opportunities to weigh in on those questions, how do they do that?Ryan Folk: Yeah, if you're wanting to look to buy, sell, research property, the best place to start at is LANDFLIP.com. It's our mothership site. It has everything, every property that is listed is on that site. That's a great way to start, anywhere from small quarter-acre lots all the way up to, you know, as Jonathan mentioned earlier in our conversation, multi-multi-multi-million dollar tracts, and all over the United States. And everything in between. Buyers of all types. Developers, end-users, farmers, investors, you name it. They're here. And we grew a lot in the last year. We just did the numbers. We're about to release a piece on LANDTHINK that's going to touch on this, so LANDFLIP is the place to go to look for the marketplace. LANDTHINK is if you are new to investing in land or purchasing land or even selling land. There is a great knowledge base of articles written by Jonathan Goode, he's got some of the best ones out there with the most eyeballs, and it covers the ... Anything and everything you can possibly think of related to land. So that would be a great place to get land smart, as we call it. Dave Milton: Right.Ryan Folk: So that's where you need to go for any of those two things you want to do.Jonathan Goode: Well, that sounds great. Well, Ryan, thank you so much for being a sponsor of The Land Show. We really appreciate LANDFLIP and LANDTHINK being a sponsor of The Land Show here and look forward to meeting up with you at Dave's deer camp and letting him grill something for us a little later on this year.Ryan Folk: Oh, yes, sir. Dave and grilling. It's almost better to watch than it is to consume.Dave Milton: Oh, I hope both of them are good.Jonathan Goode: They are. It's definitely worth it. Ryan Folk: Oh, yeah. Dave cooks a mean steak. It's not about much about what the end is as how you got there.Dave Milton: There you go.Jonathan Goode: Well, good deal, Ryan. Well, thank you so much for being on The Land Show, buddy. Look forward to talking to you soon. Ryan Folk: All right, guys. Thanks. Have a good day. Bye.Jonathan Goode: Always like talking to Ryan. He's got a good idea of what's going on all across the country, so go to LANDFLIP.com, check out the properties that are available there, and then also LANDTHINK.com if you want to get educated on buying and selling land, anything related to ownership of property. Y'all stay with us. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be back for more of The Land Show with Dave and Johnny.Click here to listen to the rest of the show
