He Turned $1,000 Into a $1M Real Estate Opportunity With Junk Land

WAYNE SEMINOFF (00:00)
And I’ll give you an example of a property I bought a year ago in the tax sale.

And I saw this property. It’s a really good-looking property. It’s a half-acre, water, sewer, and power, beautiful, well-located in Issaquah, which is real expensive neighborhood. I saw it was in the sale, and I called the guy the night before, and I said, why are you letting it go in the sale? And he says, I can’t sell it because the title’s all screwed up. And that’s one of my seven techniques is clearing title.

Scott Bursey (01:56)
I’m your host Scott Bursey and today we’re skipping the small talk and getting right to the kind of leveraged wealth creation that changes your entire course. Joining us is the man who cracked the code on scaling with next to nothing, Wayne Seminoff. Wayne is bringing the fuel by pulling back the curtain on a little known technique he used to turn a measly $1,000 into a $400,000 gain on a single deal.

if you are ready to learn how to manufacture massive equity you need to stick around. Wayne, welcome to the show.

WAYNE SEMINOFF (02:32)
Thank you. Thank you.

Scott Bursey (02:33)
We’re fired up to have you here. And for those of our listeners who may not be familiar with your journey, please tell us, how did your career begin? And what is your main focus now?

WAYNE SEMINOFF (02:43)
Well, the reason I’m here is to make people rich and make people happy and Basically, I’ve got 50 years of solid real estate experience where I just learned it on my own and I developed Several like seven backdoor approaches to taking junk land that you buy for thousand dollars and turning it into a hundred or two hundred or five hundred times your investment and

They’re simple little tricks that anybody, once they know them, anybody can do them. And I go to the tax sales once a year and I look for junk lots that nobody else wants. And I buy them for a thousand or two thousand. then, then I, but I only buy the ones where these, one of these seven points apply. And, and that’s in my book. I wrote, I wrote this book, Junk Land in the Gold. And it has everything in it that

shows the seven points, the seven major points that are involved here.

They are here. And you can see its variances, grandfathering, landlocked things, sewer problems, etc. And each one is a unique approach that nobody else uses. Some are so simple, it’s unbelievable. The other thing I want to do is…

I tell people how to be happy while they’re trying to make money. And that’s a big portion of this. And what I do is I have another site called AchieveLoveEnergy.com. And I wrote another book for that. It’s called ActivateLoveEnergy.com.

In the morning, it teaches you to do a one-minute meditation that gets you into happy love energy. Once you do that, it’s easy. You stay in it all day if you can, and you go back and touch it all day long. When you’re working and you’re happy, you make more money. It’s just how is. If you’re really, really happy, you make lots and lots of money. It’s like a karmic thing.

If you’re in gobs of love, energy, and happiness, the universe just gives you gifts of money. I I’m proof of that. The more I get into love energy, the more money I make. Easier with dramatically less work.

And I’ll give you an example of a property I bought a year ago in the tax sale. It a tax sale of…

And I saw this property. It’s a really good-looking property. It’s a half-acre, water, sewer, and power, beautiful, well-located in Issaquah, which is real expensive neighborhood. I saw it was in the sale, and I called the guy the night before, and I said, why are you letting it go in the sale? And he says, I can’t sell it because the title’s all screwed up. And that’s one of my seven techniques is clearing title.

And I said, well, I’ll buy it. And I said, I’ll give you $500 for it. And says, no, no, no. What think, I’m crazy or something? And he says, I’ve to give half to my sister. So make it $1,000, and it’s a deal. So I send him $1,000 and a deed, and he signed it. And in 90 days, the title was cleared. And the lot in that neighborhood sells for $500,000.

And then I went to the city, and I said, since it’s a half acre, can I split into two lots? They said, yeah. So it took me about four months, and I completed the short plat. So now I have two lots, each worth $500,000. And my total investment, paying all the attorneys and everything, is about $25,000. And now they’re worth a million bucks. And it’s…

It’s not that hard to do. mean, all they do is just go in the taxi sale, find a piece of property that a guy didn’t want, and then make him an offer that he would accept, a low offer, and then apply one of the seven techniques. And that turned out really well.

Scott Bursey (07:20)
say it did Wayne that is remarkable and I know our listeners are gonna want to know what allowed you to identify that property

WAYNE SEMINOFF (07:30)
Okay, well, ⁓ it’s pretty simple. I get the list before the sale that comes in the county. They’ll send you the list and it’s got like 100 properties on it. And I look, I start at the bottom up. I look for the cheapest ones first. The ones that have lowest S-value. And then I see, look at ticket, I bring them up on my computer and see how big they are. And if they’re big enough to put a foundation of a house on,

then they’re fair game. And then I see if any of my seven things apply. And if they do, then I call the guy. another thing I do is I target people who live out of state.

because it’s important to buy properties from people who don’t want their property. And out-of-state people, know, a guy who doesn’t live in Seattle and lives in New York, you know, he’s fair game, you know. And so I’ll call him. And it works pretty good. And each sale I buy maybe one or two pieces. Sometimes I buy 10.

And some of them don’t work out. That’s okay. Because let’s say I buy 10 for $10,000 and on one of them I make $400,000. It doesn’t matter what happens to the rest of them. You know what I mean? I can go and buy 50 of them at the next sale. But actually there’s only a handful of really good lots that fit these in each sale. And maybe sometimes only one lot.

Scott Bursey (08:49)
Wayne, if you can walk us through the seven principles in your book.

WAYNE SEMINOFF (08:55)
Yeah, sure. Yeah, let’s do that. But let me show them to you again here.

And well first I want to start that the two lead things are really important. These are not the principles. It’s just the overall. You want to buy from don’t-wanners, people who don’t want their properties. If you approach somebody who wants their property, they want a billion dollars for a piece of junk. Okay? And you just can’t do that. So, and the second principle is very important. It’s called Mistaking Your Way to Success.

And in this type of thing, you have to go, it’s like panning for gold with a gold pan, and it’s full of gravel. And each piece of gravel is a bad thing. It’s no good. And that’s, I call those mistakes. So you have to go through all these pieces of gravel, make lots of mistakes until you find a nugget, which is in the bottom. And then,

Also, when you make a mistake, it’s really important your attitude about it. When you make a mistake, you have to laugh. You tried to go to this property and it turns out it’s a real dud. So you have to laugh at yourself that you just made a mistake and you put it in a good place in your brain that says, I’m happy because I know I’m I’m mistaking my way to success and I’m going to be a real rich guy.

So, and I make lots of mistakes. Every day I make probably 20 or 30 mistakes. So I laugh at myself every time because if you don’t laugh at yourself, you say the other thing. I’m stupid, I’m worthless, I’m bad. And all that stuff kills your momentum and stops you from being successful. So it’s a little mind thing you play. So always mistake your way to success and laugh.

Okay. And the seven points, I’ll read them to you. It’s getting variances on property. Like if a property is too small, you can get a variance on it and build on it even though it’s too small. Cities will always allow you variances. They’re very supportive.

Another thing is, if the lot doesn’t meet the current building code, if it’s an old lot, it can be grandfathered in on the old code, which was very lenient. The new codes get tighter and tighter. And so, if it’s grandfathered, the new code doesn’t apply. So, if you buy a lot that’s built before the city put their code in, then you could get relief that way. Another thing is…

Landlocked lots. Some lots are you can’t get to because they’re landlocked. They’re behind a property or whatever. And that one’s real easy to fix. It’s stupid simple. It’s so easy that people don’t even think about it. You say, well, it’s landlocked. can’t go to it. So you just go to the neighbor who has access and you offer him half of what you make.

So let’s say the lots in the neighborhood where lots sell for $200,000, you go to the neighbor and say, I’ll tell you what, I’ll give you $100,000 if you let me have a 10-foot right of way through the side of your yard that you’re not using. And I’ll give you that when I sell the property, if you’ll give me the easement. And if he says yes, then I’ve made $100,000 without spending a penny off my $1,000 lot.

I mean, it’s really cool. All I have to do is fill out these before he designs it. You can get those on chat GPT now. So that’s really easy. And it can make you hundreds of thousands of dollars on one deal. If you do 10 of them, you can make a million. I mean, really, it’s not hard. Anybody can do that. Anybody. You don’t have to be talented. You just, you know.

Scott Bursey (12:47)
In traditional ways, yes.

WAYNE SEMINOFF (13:13)
The other one is called, No Sewer, No Shit. That means there’s lots of lots that do not perk. They’re in the outskirts of the city. They’re outside the sewer area where they have sewer lines. And there you have to have a septic system. And there’s lots of really nice properties in the rural areas. Not too rural, but a couple miles from downtown.

Again, if your property is too wet or whatever, you just go to the neighbor who has dry, percable land and you offer them the same deal. You say, hey, this lot, if I can get a septic system on your property, I’ll give you $250,000.

And again, you buy the lot for $1,000, you go to the neighbor and he agrees and it’s a $500,000 lot, like a five acre lot or something like really nice. And you offer him $250,000 to let you use part of his lot. And that’s another gem that anybody can do. And you see how simple they are? I they really are. I mean, it’s, I call it stupid simple. It’s so simple, even a stupid person could do it. So,

Scott Bursey (14:24)
What’s the key? Just implementing the simple strategies waking up in the morning and saying I’m going to accomplish this I’m going to accomplish that and working your game plan

WAYNE SEMINOFF (14:26)
Yeah.

Yeah, it’s a… Well, typically the tax sales only come out once a year. So you don’t have to do it all every day. You just wait, you know, like I try and get the tax sale lists about six months or five months before the sale so I can work them leisurely at my… and look at each one carefully and spend time contacting people. A lot of times you can’t get a hold of them, you know, whatever. And then you just target the properties that look good.

and target a bunch of them, as many as you can. And I try and work only in my backyard. I don’t go more than 45 minutes from my house to make millions of dollars. Because there’s gold right in your own backyard. I live in a real high rent neighborhood off Lake Washington in Seattle. And I’ve done…

A couple of my biggest deals within a mile of my house. Junk properties.

Yeah, so you don’t have to go out in the middle of desert to buy junk property. You can buy, you know, like bought one lot right next to Bill Gates’ house for $100. Touches his driveway. it’s a long story, but eventually that lot sold to Bill Gates for a million dollars. Okay, but that’s, you know, that’s…

Scott Bursey (16:40)
Could you walk us through that just a little

bit, Wayne? That’s an interesting story.

WAYNE SEMINOFF (16:46)
Now it’s goofier than shit. This is a long time ago. When you can buy tax lots for $100 instead of $1,000. This is like 40 years ago. I bought the lot before the sale. And in those days, if you let a lot go on the sale and people bid it up and you were the prior owner, you got all the surplus.

And I bought the lot the day before the sale from the owner. And then I let go on the sale because I didn’t know it was next to Bill Gates’ house that time. I looked at it and I went, it doesn’t look buildable, but it looks good. It’s a Medina, is where Bill lives. So I let it go on the sale and it got bid up to $40,000. And in those days, $40,000 worth like 200 grand today. This is like way back then.

And so I just sold it in 24 hours and I made 40 grand, which is equivalent to making 200,000 in 24 hours. But the guy who it was a buddy of mine. And I told him not to buy it because it wasn’t buildable. And he says, well, he’s paranoid. He says, well, if you said that, that means it really is buildable and you’re trying to fool me, so I’m going to buy it. So he bought it.

And then he found out it wasn’t buildable and he freaked out. And at that point, didn’t know Bill Gates was going to buy the property next door. So after about, I think it was about six or eight months, Bill Gates bought all the property around that. And it ended up being a piece right next to Bill Gates’ driveway.

And so then he approached Bill Gates and offered to sell it to him. And Bill Gates offered him like a hundred bucks or something. so he arm wrestled with Bill Gates’ legal team for about a year or two years on it. They went back and forth. And eventually they bought it for a million dollars. So he made his money.

Scott Bursey (18:37)
Wow.

WAYNE SEMINOFF (18:39)
And I thought it was just a fluke because I didn’t know it was right next to his house. Yeah, so that’s a funny one.

Scott Bursey (18:47)
That is remarkable and that’s because you are being proactive. What sort of advice Golden Nuggets can you give to our listeners, Wayne?

WAYNE SEMINOFF (18:57)
Oh, it’s like panning for gold. I really, it’s, I call it junk landing the gold because each piece is worth more than gold is worth. I mean, you can’t buy a thousand dollars worth of gold and have it be worth $200,000 in a week or a month or a year or whatever. So it’s actually worth more than gold. But the key is that anybody can do this.

And I put this information out there because I want to share this with the universe.

I’ve done it for 40 years. I’ve made enough money. I don’t need to make any more money. But now I want to take all this knowledge and give it to young people who are in a dead-end job. They can’t pay their bills every month and they have nothing saved if they ever get fired or quit or get sick. They get screwed. So this is their way out. And it’s a good side gig. You do this on the side. You have your bread and butter job, whatever it is. And then you do this on the side. It’s like a hobby. And then when you hit one,

You get know 100,000 300 400 thousand and wow you know you put it in the bank You got 400,000 that you’d never would have had and it doesn’t take that much work. I mean really I mean, it’s just you do it as a hobby and So my goal is to make young people Give them a way out give them a way out and then in addition to that I try and push the love energy thing too because

To help people get out, you’ve to be happy. What I do with this one here, is ActivateLoveEnergy.com. It teaches people in the morning to do a one-minute meditation, or you can call it whatever you want to call it, that puts you into Love Energy’s mental space. While you’re working and you’re looking for lots and all that stuff, you’re in a happier mental space. When you call people, they can feel it.

When you call people when you’re happy, they know you’re happy. When you call people when you’re desperate, they know you’re desperate. And so, the right mindset is really valuable to have in making money and also makes your life happier. When you call somebody and you laugh with them, you know you’ve connected. You know, and you call somebody out of fear and go, desperation, well, God, I got to get this deal or I’m not going to pay my bills. They sense that and it makes them run, you know.

So it’s real important to practice doing this every day. And here, these are all my sites that I have to help people. You see, Activate Love Energy. Another one, Activate Happiness. That’s another one. The future was perfect. This is my favorite one here.

When people are worrying about nuclear war and the future sucks, and know, Iran and all that bullshit, if you say the future was perfect and you picture it, and then you look at how you are now, you feel dramatically relieved and there’s no more fear. It’s a mind trick, but if you let your mind take that in and touch it and feel it, you automatically become happier. And then…

I’ve got that one in there. then I’ve got Ask Wayne Anything, because I know everything about everything. I’ve got so much knowledge I can help any of you. Virtually on any subject. I’ve studied so much stuff. And the last one is junklandintogold.com, which is the money-making one. So, you can make money, but you also need to be happy. the happiness one too is that nobody teaches this.

People think emotions come from… You have an emotion, then you have a thought. You think that’s the pattern, emotion, then thought. It’s the other way around. You have a thought in your brain that creates the emotion. It comes that way. Nobody really realizes that. So when you have an emotion that’s negative, if you look at the thought you had just before, you have the emotion, and you identify it. Then I say the trick is called changing the record. You take whatever your mind said, like I’m sad,

and you change the record to I’m Happy, and you start repeating it over and over again whenever that sad record plays, eventually you’ll start laughing and be happy and you’ll no longer be sad. And that works. And if you can do that, you change your whole life.

Yeah. So.

Scott Bursey (23:10)
Wayne,

this has been an absolute master class. And for those of our listeners that want to contact you any other way than what you already have so generously supplied, what is the best way for them to contact you?

WAYNE SEMINOFF (23:25)
Yeah, here, this is on my card here. It’s got my email address, [email protected] And that’s my personal phone number. They can just call me.

And I’m glad I’ll help anybody with anything. And I’ll do it for free. I don’t do this to make money. I do this just to help people. In fact, it’s the junk land and the gold. I don’t really make enough money to pay for the 50 videos and the two books I wrote. I sell the program. If you say F-U-N, I go to buy it, you get half off and it’s 500 bucks. And 500 bucks is…

It’s way below my cost to produce it. anyway. Yeah, and everything else is free.

Scott Bursey (24:06)
Thank you so much for joining us today. This has been a sincere pleasure.

WAYNE SEMINOFF (24:12)
Thank you. Well, thanks for inviting me. I appreciate that. And I hope this helps somebody somewhere out there. If it helps one person, I win. My goal is at least help one person a day become a happier, better, richer person.

Scott Bursey (24:26)
And to our listeners, we appreciate each and every one of you. If you got value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We’ve got a lineup of exceptional guests, just like Wayne, who are making real impacts in the world. Wayne, once again, thank you for joining us today.

WAYNE SEMINOFF (24:44)
Scott, thank you very much for inviting me.

Scott Bursey (24:46)
Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you in the next episode, everyone.