How to Turn $1,000 of Junk Land Into $1 Million | Wayne Seminoff

Wayne Seminoff (00:00)
You go to the neighbor in the front and you say, I’ll give you two hundred thousand dollars if you give me an easement for a driveway to go to this landlocked property. Yes, sir. And

Quentin Edmonds (00:07)
Yeah.

Wayne Seminoff (00:08)
if he says yes, then you sell the property and give him two hundred thousand dollars and you make two hundred thousand. You’ve

Quentin Edmonds (00:14)
Yeah yeah.

Wayne Seminoff (00:15)
only and your total investment is one thousand dollars.

Quentin Edmonds (01:50)
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the *Real Estate Pros Podcast*. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I am excited to be here today. I’m excited about my guests. I’m excited about his journey. I’m excited about what he has to teach you. You know, we were talking a little bit, and one of the things he wants to do is teach people how to make a million dollars with a hundred dollar investment.

I cannot wait for this guy to get to get to talking to you guys. he is the author of *Junk Land into Gold*. I cannot wait again, like just for us to glean from his experience. And so I’m so excited to introduce you all to Mr. Wayne Seminoff. Mr. Wayne, how you doing today, sir?

Wayne Seminoff (02:32)
Doing great. Doing great. Thanks for inviting me. I appreciate it.

Quentin Edmonds (02:35)
Absolutely, sir. I’m glad you’re here. I I’m excited to have this conversation with you. And I’m the type Mr. Wayne. I like to dive right in. And so I would love for you to tell the people what’s your main focus these days. If you don’t mind, give us a little origin story, kind of how you got to the space that you’re in, and then tell them where you are in the world. So Mr. Wayne, sir, you have the floor, my friend.

Wayne Seminoff (02:57)
All right. well I’m eighty-three years old. when I turned eighty years old, I decided to make a dramatic change in my life. Prior to that, all I cared about is making money and not helping people. I was just helping myself. And I decided I don’t want to do that anymore. the the remaining part of my life, which is you know, when you’re eighty you think you’re gonna die at some point. I wanna do make people happy. And I wanna help people in any way I can.

with all my valuable knowledge. I’ve got so much knowledge about life and business and stuff, and I want to give that out. And so what I decided to do is basically do two programs. One is how to make money in in junk real estate where you can buy a property for a thousand dollars and sell it for 500 or a million or whatever. And the other one is called Achieve Love Energy, where I try and people teach people how to be happy in their lives.

while they’re making money. Yeah. Because if you’re not happy while you’re making money, you know, if you’re frustrated and upset and you know, telling yourself you’re not worthwhile and all that, it it it’s it’s a bad deal. So the the game is to make money, be in love energy or happy and don’t put yourself down and just achieve and and and live a a loving, happy, wealthy life. Yeah. That’s that’s what I try and teach people.

Quentin Edmonds (04:19)
Yes, sir. I love it. So talk talk to me. I know this is what you want to teach people. How do you go about teaching them? If somebody’s interested in learning how to take a hundred dollar investment, turn it into a million, how do you go about teaching them? Is there a a a structure to it, system to it? Talk to me, Mr. Wayne. How do you go about it?

Wayne Seminoff (04:40)
It’s actually it’s pretty good. I it took me three years to get it all down so people could so I could teach people remotely. And what I did is I wrote two books. And the first book is called let’s see, where is it here? Junk.

Quentin Edmonds (04:54)
Bag it up just there we go. That’s good. That’s great.

Wayne Seminoff (04:56)
*Junk Land into Gold*. Yeah. And and and the other one is this is how that’s and there’s another book is how to how to buy *Junk Land into Gold*. One teaches you how to fix it, one teaches how to buy it. Yeah. And then I did a a third book is it’s called *Activate Love Energy*.

Quentin Edmonds (05:14)
Yeah.

Wayne Seminoff (05:15)
Anyway, I I put the books and and I also did fifty videos to I and that explain the detail in the book. So it’s

It’s a complete program that teaches you exactly how to do what I did for 40 years and make gobs of money buying junk pieces of property at the tax sales. Yeah. And

Quentin Edmonds (05:33)
Yeah.

Wayne Seminoff (05:34)
and what that means, let me tell you what that means is every year they have a tax sale here in King County, Washington, and most most states have this. And and people who put their money put who let their property go in the tax sale called don’t want her. They don’t want their property.

Yeah. An adult launder will sell you their property at peanuts. I mean, just raw peanuts. And what that means is I’ll give you an example. Last year they had a tax sale here and I I saw this half acreed property with water, sewer, and power right on the corner in downtown Issaquah, right across the street from Target. I it really I mean, this is a King Kong killer site, and it’s worth a lot of money. And I saw it was in the tax sale, so I

So I do is I call him up on the phone before the tax sale and say, Well, why are you letting it go? You know? And the guy says, Well, the tack the title’s all screwed up. And we tried to give it to the city and they wouldn’t take it. And he said, Well, I’m just gonna let it go in the sale. I said, Well, I’ll buy it. Yeah. And he says, Well, how much? I said, I’ll give you five hundred bucks for it. And he goes, What do you think? I’m crazy or something? And I go, Well, how much do you want? And he goes, Well, I gotta split it with my sister, so make it a thousand and it’s yours.

So I Venmoed him $1,000 and sent him the deed. I owned it in a week. Yeah. Okay, then one of my seven techniques of of develop of making properties buildable is clearing title. It’s really easy to do, but people, you know, it sounds like a monster, but it’s very easy to do. So I called my attorney, I said, clear the title on it, tell them how to do it. It took it takes 90 days to do it. In 90 days, I had clear title, and that property is worth 500,000.

lot in that area. Wow. But then I went to the city and I said, it’s a half acre and and the lots around it are all quarter acre. Make it into two lots. Yeah. They said, okay, so they made it into two two lots. Yeah. So now I have two lots worth 500 apiece. So they’re both together worth a million bucks. Wow. And my total out of pocket I had to pay the attorney fifteen thousand and I had to pay another fifteen to get the the the shortcut finished. Yeah. So for thirty thousand dollars, I now have a million dollar property.

Come on. But

Quentin Edmonds (07:39)
Yeah.

Wayne Seminoff (07:40)
you know, that’s just that’s just one example. Yeah. But you don’t even need money. there’s one of the techniques I teach is landlocked properties. Yeah. You know, like let’s say the the lot behind that guy’s house, it’s landlocked, he doesn’t own it, and nobody around him owns it. Yeah. And you you can go to the tax sale and buy it for a thousand dollars ’cause it’s landlocked. Yeah. And you what you do is let’s say it’s in a nice neighborhood where it’s worth four hundred thousand if it’s buildable.

Quentin Edmonds (08:05)
Yeah.

Wayne Seminoff (08:06)
You go to the neighbor in the front and you say, I’ll give you two hundred thousand dollars if you give me an easement for a driveway to go to this landlocked property. Yes, sir. And

Quentin Edmonds (08:13)
Yeah.

Wayne Seminoff (08:14)
if he says yes, then you sell the property and give him two hundred thousand dollars and you make two hundred thousand. You’ve

Quentin Edmonds (08:20)
Yeah yeah.

Wayne Seminoff (08:21)
only and your total investment is one thousand dollars. That’s total. Total total total. Wow. So if so a thousand dollars, you make two hundred thousand. Yeah. Wow. That’s those are two tricks. Yeah. There’s seven, there’s seven tricks I teach in these things.

And anyways, the beauty of it is y it’s I’ve got forty years of finding out how to get in the back doors and slide right through like a hot knife through butter where everybody else goes to front door, you know, and the front door, everybody’s going the front door and there’s competitions. There’s no competition in what I do.

Quentin Edmonds (08:54)
Come on.

Wayne Seminoff (08:54)
I mean and and you can do it as a hobby. And what I’d suggest is like if

If you’re in a dead end job where you just work, you know, you just work enough to pay the bills basically and you have nothing left over, this is what you do as a hobby. Yeah. A sidekick. You don’t quit your job and do this.

What you do is you continue you need cash flow, you know, dick you need cash flow monthly to to get get this thing warmed up. Yeah at some point you don’t, but so what you do is you stay in your regular job and then you do this stuff on the side at like a hobby. Yes, sir. And you know, like night or weekends.

And all you need is one piece of property that works. And and and there you can there’s it the number of properties that are available for this is unlimited. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And you’re w no no matter where you live. Yeah. No matter where you live, it’s un unlimited. Yeah. And so but you just it’s like eating an elephant. You only eat a toenail at a time. Toenail at a time. Never never try and eat the whole elephant.

Quentin Edmonds (10:38)
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I love it, man. Mr. Wayne, I thank you, sir. So obviously you have a lot of operational things in the place. So what’s one operational tip maybe you can give people and that that you use that is helping you be successful at at what you do?

Wayne Seminoff (10:54)
Well there’s two things and I teach them in my book actually the tier the first two things you need to know is that only buy from people who don’t want their property. Never buy listed property on the real estate, never buy from people who think their property is worth a a gazillion dollars. You know, you just buy you f and there’s lots of people who don’t want their property, like kids who inherit their parents’ property, generally they hate their parents and they hate the property and they’ll sell it to you for nothing.

Yeah, I bought houses for $45,000 right here in downtown Seattle, you know, that from heirs. They inherited their house, they didn’t pay their taxes, they could get and they didn’t keep up the house. So you w want to buy from a don’t wanna. Yeah. That’s the other thing. And the other thing, the other point is really important is you want to mistake your way to success. You want to fail your way to success because the more mistakes you make, the richer you get. Come on. That’s the rule.

Yeah. And and what I mean with by mistakes is trying to do something and failing at it. Yeah. And each time you fail, you get stronger and wiser because each failure teaches you, you know, well, you shouldn’t have done this or you should do it this way. So and the the important part of failing your way to success is you tell yourself, I’m failing myself to success and then you laugh.

Quentin Edmonds (12:10)
Yeah.

Wayne Seminoff (12:10)
You have to laugh with it. You have to say it. And what it does, it makes you feel happy about getting beat up. Yes, sir.

Because in business you get beat up. Yeah. And there’s two choices. One, you get beat up, and you go, Well, I’m worthless. I’m I’m a failure. I’ll never succeed. I’m, you know, I suck. Yeah. That’s the plan A. Yes, sir. But but what we have to do is say, no, when I fail, I’m getting richer and richer because I’m failing my way to success. And you keep reminding I I remind myself every even now, I make hundreds of mistakes. When I it takes me 20 minutes to type a one minute email, you know.

I tell I make so many mistakes and every time I do it I laugh because I’m gonna get richer and richer because I keep making more mistakes. And and it and you have to have fun doing your business. Yeah. And you and that you have to keep that attitude that you’re you’re really you’re having fun. Yeah and you and laugh at yourself when you screw up.

Quentin Edmonds (13:05)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Wayne Seminoff (13:07)
Really

important for your ego. Those are the two main points. And and then and the other part, the last part is there’s another part that goes with this whole thing. Let’s see, let me show this. This is I have another program that teaches people how to be happy and overcome all their mental barriers. People have metal barriers and this is this is this is my card here. Perfect,

Quentin Edmonds (13:31)
The future was perfect.

Wayne Seminoff (13:32)
wow.

Perfect. Okay, and there’s my phone number. People can call me. You know, I’m I’m not a hidden guy. You know, they can call if they have a problem, they can call me. Yeah. If they do if they’re a real estate problem or personal problem, they can call me. These are all my sites that I have. And

Quentin Edmonds (13:45)
Yeah.

Wayne Seminoff (13:46)
you can use the QR code on it, maybe. I don’t know if you

Quentin Edmonds (13:48)
Yes, sir.

Wayne Seminoff (13:50)
can get it up.

Quentin Edmonds (13:50)
activeloveenergy.com, activehappinessnow.com, changetherecords.com, junklandintogold.com. I love it. And thefuturewasperfect.com.

Wayne Seminoff (14:46)
Yeah, thefuturewasperfect.com. That’s the that’s the best to overcome fear. See everyone they project into the future fear and worry. And if you project fear and worry, your future becomes fear and worry. Because you actually get what you project. You know, it’s kind of like a foo-foo thing. But so if you project the future was perfect, okay? Yes, sir. And you think about it, and then you feel how you are now, if you saw it being perfect, yes sir, you feel happiness. Yes, sir. You don’t feel fear.

So when you think of nuclear war or you know or pandemics and all that bullshit, and if you so you you you wanna you wanna do this every day all the time. Perfect.

Quentin Edmonds (15:24)
Yeah, yeah.

Wayne Seminoff (15:26)
And my favorite one here is down here at the bottom. It’s called Change the Records.

Quentin Edmonds (15:30)
Yeah. Yeah. This one.

Wayne Seminoff (15:32)
You know, we all cre people don’t realize that the thoughts we say in our mind create our emotions. It’s not emotions that create thought. It’s not that way. It goes from thought first to emotion. You like you you feel sad. It’s because you just told yourself you’re sad. Yeah. You say, well, I’m sad, I’m sad, I’m sad. That’s the record. Yeah, yeah. You change the record to I’m happy, I’m happy, I’m happy. But you have to recognize that you see I’m saying you you have to recognize the negative thought because you this is how I do it.

If you feel a negative emotion, you go, What thought did I have? Yeah. And then you look at that thought, whatever the thought is, you make it the opposite thought and repeat it every time that negative thought shows up. Yeah. And if you do it over and over again, at the end you’ll be laughing. You

Quentin Edmonds (16:14)
Come on.

Wayne Seminoff (16:15)
go from sadness and crying to laughing. And it works. It’s stupid simple. That’s why I love it, because it it’s the simplest way to make your life better. Yeah. So that’s my that’s my favorite one.

And I use it all the I use it all the time. Because,

Quentin Edmonds (16:31)
Yeah, yeah.

Wayne Seminoff (16:32)
you know, you’re a victim of whatever I’ll s you know, I go along and go, God, I don’t feel good. And then you think, well, what did I just say to myself that said I’m not I don’t feel good? You know, what did I just say? You know, like, I don’t have enough money, I’m hungry, I’m mad, I’m you know, friend just died, you know. I mean, you know, all the negative bullshit. And you can flip flop that in your brain by changing the records. Absolutely.

Quentin Edmonds (16:53)
Absolutely,

sir. Well, what’s next for you, Mr. Wayne? What are you looking for? What’s the next real goal? what are you looking to solve at scale next, man?

Wayne Seminoff (17:01)
my my this is my final goal of the rest of my life is to help people dramatically in their lives every day. And I do it one person at a time every day. And every day every day I I help a new person dramatically make their lives better and either personally or financially. Yeah. And and that’s what my intention is to do that until I die. Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (17:22)
Mm.

Wayne Seminoff (17:24)
That’s that’s my goal.

Quentin Edmonds (17:25)
That’s the goal. So talk to me. How do you you want to help people? Talk to me a little bit about your your philosophy or the way you build healthy relationships, healthy business relationships. And what are some of the relationships that have helped you be successful along this journey?

Wayne Seminoff (17:40)
Yeah. well as as far as business relationships, the only business we’re talking about here is the junk land and the gold. And you know, that’s real. you keep you go to the tax sales in your county and you call them up and you get the list, and you go through the list and just start working on the properties. And I work on from the bottom up because I look at the junk. You know, I don’t go with the ones that are ten million dollars, I go to the ones that are ten dollars, you know.

And just look at each property and see if any of the seven techniques I have in my book fit the those properties.

I’ll show you the yeah. This is there’s seven, these are all the tools. Well there’s actually there’s nine tools, but but you know you can do variances, grandfathering to solve problems, on landlock properties, you know that’s what we just talked about, landlocked. no sewer, no shit. Yeah. we can figure out how to make properties perk that don’t perk. Yeah. You know. we can change boundary line.

Adjustments at will. and partition sales. Well, that’s another, that’s kind of a goofy one. Clearing titles, number eight. Yeah. That’s that one’s my favorite because nobody thinks you can clear title. You know, once title’s screwed up, yeah. It’s a dead duck. Yeah. But it’s it’s actually easy to fix. You

Quentin Edmonds (18:59)
Yeah.

Wayne Seminoff (19:01)
just don’t have to be afraid of it. Yes, sir. But well, but yeah, so I’d say, you know, just

the book’s a pretty ABC thing. You just go through it, tells you how to do it. And there and then the videos, they expand on the book. So, you know, if you it tells you exactly what to say to the city planners when you’re asking them to make your lot buildable. You know. And and they’ll help you. And I learned most of my stuff from city planners. And I went I went to one and said, What’s the back door to make this ugly lot, this worthless, worth something? And they’d laugh and then they’d look at it and they’d

Come up with all these back doors that nobody else knows. I didn’t know when I first went in. Yes, sir. I’d buy a piece of property for a thousand dollars, I’d say, if I own it for a thousand, I can you know, I c I can do something with it, you know. Yes. And then I’d go back I work backwards to find out how to make it buildable. Well, I finally did all that. So now I know it’s it’s it’s pretty fast. Yeah. You know, like the easement thing, you know, like you know, like if you buy a landlocked property behind some guy’s house and then

You you go to the the guy and the and say it’s worth four hundred thousand if it’s buildable. You go to the guy in front and you go, I’ll give you two hundred thousand dollars if you give me a a driveway to my landlock property when I sell it. If he says yes, why not? He gets two hundred thousand dollars for just giving you a little driveway. No, sorry. And the total cost to to make that two hundred thousand is one thousand dollars. Look at that. That’s you don’t have to do anything. You just call a realtor and sell it.

You you know you have to pay anybody anything until it’s sold. And then you you give the guy two hundred thousand and you get two hundred thousand. It’s one

Quentin Edmonds (20:35)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wayne Seminoff (20:37)
of the easiest two hundred thousand you ever made in your whole life. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yeah. You may have to do you know, do this with several lots to find somebody who agrees. Yeah. That’s the work part. But if somebody agrees, which you know, like I give somebody a a little driveway on the side of my lot if if if they give me two hundred grand. I you know, two hundred grand is a lot of money.

Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (20:57)
Yes, it is. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. But listen, Mr. Wayne, sir. I thank you so much for coming on. I thank you for the conversation. I want to say three things to you sincerely. I want to thank you for your time. I think time is our most precious commodity. So I appreciate you coming on, giving us your time. thank you for your stories. Thank you for your authentic self. I really, really appreciate you showing up and planting some real seeds.

And thank you for the way you think, sir. Thank you for your mindset and bringing that mindset to this platform. I greatly, greatly appreciate you coming on today, sir.

Wayne Seminoff (21:29)
Thank you. Thank you. Well, you’re a lot of fun to talk to. Thank you. I enjoyed it.

Quentin Edmonds (21:34)
Yeah, absolutely. Well listen, y’all, his information is in the show notes. Please get in contact with Mr. Wayne. *Junk Land into Gold*. And so many of them

Wayne Seminoff (21:46)
tell me if if they buy the program *Junk Land into Gold* they get it for half price if they put F U N as a discount code. F U N

Quentin Edmonds (21:54)
He will

Wayne Seminoff (21:55)
F U N as a discount code you get for it’s a thousand dollars listed and and you can buy it for five hundred.

Quentin Edmonds (22:01)
Y’all hear that? Fun. F U N Put that as the discount code. So definitely again. Thank you, Mr. Wayne, for coming on today. And everyone else, listen, I want y’all to have a phenomenal day.