This episode was recorded April 3rd, 2025 during severe market turmoil from unprecedented tariff announcements, addressing how the business continues closing deals (including a near-million-dollar property sale and multiple acquisitions) while markets crashed and uncertainty spread across all economic sectors.
Key Takeaways:
- Action Beats Waiting in Uncertainty Sitting on the sidelines hoping for better conditions wastes prime working years, as demonstrated by those who said “survive till 25” last year only to face worse conditions now, while operators who kept moving are still closing deals.
- Domestic Assets Provide Tariff Insulation U.S. land faces no direct tariff exposure since it’s a domestic asset, and while consumer sentiment affects disposition, the right properties still attract qualified buyers even during market crashes.
- Speed of Recovery Defines Winners High performers combat negative thoughts immediately and focus on controllable factors rather than dwelling on macro conditions, recognizing that every crisis in history produced winners who buckled down while others complained.
Listen to the full episode for the mindset framework that keeps deals flowing when others freeze, including specific examples of properties moving under contract during the chaos.
(Podcast transcript below)
Hi, Chris Duff over at Serious Land Capital, vacant land funding partner. Today, kind of live more reaction podcast, you’re recording this on April 3rd, 2025, obviously, a lot of market turmoil, probably some of the most that we’ve seen and
five years since like those very early days of COVID where everything shut down. We’ll see how this plays out. I think it’s hard not to, even if you don’t have like direct exposure to various public equities and so forth, not to feel some level of trepidation, just where are things going? Various uncertainty and…
wondering whether you can make it through and so forth. All of those are kind of natural, net natural feelings, humans are social creatures, So, and uncertainty tend to spread. And clearly that’s been impacting the markets probably for good reason. We’re in pretty unprecedented territory. That’s, you know.
We really haven’t seen, you see all the reporting, these tariff levels and so forth, haven’t seen anything like this in like over 100 years. So a lot that can not necessarily be predicted at the moment, but for us…
Yeah, I don’t think anybody would view this as like an ideal scenario. It makes everything pretty much everything harder from an economical perspective. Fortunately, within our business, we’re dealing with domestic assets. It’s literally US land. So there’s no risk of terror from that side directly impacting the business. Yes, indirectly, of course, it can impact.
especially the Dispo side would be a concern and where people are going to put their funds to use, going to tighten their belts potentially and so forth, are we going to plunge into a recession, who knows? All that is kind of up in the air at the moment. I was commenting a lot about this on the land daily diligence earlier. And I know there was some stats thrown around, know, hey, the world economy and the U.S. economy, they’re
Massive they don’t necessarily change overnight. Yes, the markets public markets are like a really loud indicator But you know, it’s only representative of like a little over 3,000 companies out of millions around the country So we have to keep that in mind plus imports Are only about 10 % of the total US economy
So yes, that is an impact. There’s no doubt about it. But is it going to be as large from a dollar for dollar perspective as it might seem just from a sentiment perspective? But that’s actually the key here is that if consumer and business sentiment continues to drop, it can just be a vicious cycle on a flywheel effect that can plunge us into a recession.
Even if, you know, again, unlike actual dollars being impacted by tariffs, it’s less direct than what might otherwise be the result, just, you know, accounting for the psychology of it all. So that’s something to watch out for here. You know, within our business, though, like
You know, we’ve just found, hey, we’re still able to move forward here. You know, even just yesterday, we, you know, went under contract to sell a property for almost a million dollars that were supposed to exit in like roughly four months, you know, very well financed buyer too. So we’re not concerned from a financing side. We’re set to close selling another property end of next week. We just.
I just sent out another wire for like 65K earlier today. Buying a property we’ve been working on for months, super long closed process, the whole story in and of itself. But that market is still looking really good at the moment. There’s another property that we just purchased roughly a week ago in Alabama that already has very strong buyer interests, might be under contract even within the next couple of days. So like just going to show that
The right assets can still move. We’re staying focused on what we can control. And that’s all we can really do. You know, I again, totally understand the sentiment. Hey, just world’s ending, et cetera, et cetera. And we’ve definitely fallen into that trap before. You know, there are definitely some rough times in 2022. Inflation crisis really started hitting and
where you kind of wondered, should we just like sit on the sidelines here and wait for things to change? And I think that’s a James Cameron quote, it’s like, hope is not a strategy. And you can just sit around waiting and waiting. And you know, we nearly went out of business doing that versus like taking, you know, strong informed action because like the waiting game just try to, I don’t know anybody who,
really benefits longer term, especially entrepreneurs when you’re trying to run a business, like sitting around waiting, like it’s just, it doesn’t actually accomplish anything. So yeah, you might need to change some strategies here and there, as needed, be more cautious about what type of assets you’re buying. But like sitting around just like, woe is me, macro economies just got me down. I mean, remember last year, everybody was saying, survive till 25, but now…
Now look at the economy even compared to last year, we probably take last year over what’s going on right now. And then it’s like, man, when’s this going to end? And then all of sudden, like years of just your prime working days are just passing by where you’re not taking the actions necessary to get to the next step and control what you can control. So I think that’s just a slippery slope if you start.
Finding yourself there psychologically, remember speed recovery is just critical for high performers. Something to keep in mind, like yeah, you got to combat the overall feeling. Again, I don’t think anybody’s feeling good about it. It’s just, you know, there’s those of us who are going to keep moving forward and those of us who won’t and they’re going to fall by the wayside. You know, look at how many times in human history where, yeah, there were just huge environmental…
Um, economical changes sometimes lasting for many years, decades. mean, look at almost a hundred years ago. Do you think anybody, um, you know, that was again, kind of in, in, the prime of their careers, like, like some of us include myself, um, you know, entering into like 1929 and then economy really didn’t recover until like the mid 1940s. You’re looking at like 15 years of going through a massive depression and then, uh,
know, world spanning war, before things really started to turn the corner from an economy side. Like, who knows? hope something like that wouldn’t necessarily be as long in, in, modern economy like, like ours, but you know, what if we really had to buckle down for the next 15 years, like really rough economy where you just had to like scramble and stay focused to survive? Like ask yourself, are you up for that?
Like that might be the environment that we’re in. Like some people are still going to find a way through, right? know, humanity, made it through the 1930s, made it through the 1940s. We’re still here. Still managed to thrive after that. It’s definitely a rough ride. Like I wasn’t around then, but you know, understandably, a lot of people were in a really tough space and you know, that was the nature of being born in that era. And you kind of have to deal with again, what you can control with those overarching
situations. that’s what I try to remind myself of how to approach situations like this and just understanding, okay, you know, that Jim Rome quote and my coach Trevor McGregor would remark on too, is that, you know, don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better. Like, I play that in my mind all the time, because it’s so easy to just be thinking, man, I could have been.
adjusting, you know, could have made so many other better decisions here and
this just not going well, like, oh, just blaming these other people. Why are our government making these decisions and just making everything so much harder, blah, blah, blah, blah. I get that. Those are just those negative thoughts that can creep up and start destroying everything within your life if you’re not careful. Or, again, you can just acknowledge that and then also buckle down and realize, okay, does that mean that every single person out there is not going to be able to succeed?
Are there some that are gonna come out better from this than others? Inevitably, yes, because that’s the nature of every crisis or difficult time within human history. So are you gonna be one of those that buckle up and figure out, okay, what are the next steps that I need to take to be better? Or are you just gonna wish that things were easier and get nothing done? So hopefully this is helpful here.
And yeah, I mean, again, we’re, we’re, we have a good community together here. We’re all, we’re all moving forward. My business moving forward. We’re, not just talking the talk. We’re walking the walk. We just told you we’re closing on stuff, buy side and sell side, moving forward. Cause we know the right assets are still going to have a market. And that’s all we can do with that in mind. If you’re for funding, serious land dot capital.
I just got off my Land Daily Diligence Facebook group, zero cost review of your land deals just before recording this, and landpricer.ai for the most simple and accurate way to price land. A lot more updates coming there. Totally revamped. Have to make it more fast and efficient. That’s another update coming here shortly based on feedback I’ve been getting. But you know, again, that’s the nature of it. Have to be better.
With all that in mind, subscribe and share. Looking forward to next time. Take care. Bye.
